I was, like most Americans, very confused by the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s running mate. Liberal women weren’t going to vote for her both because her selection seemed like such a ham-handed grab for Hillary voters, and because of her anti-woman political positions. Conservative women would reject her because, as discussed while Hillary was in the running, they don’t think a woman should be president, and especially not one with young children. Doubly so for a woman with a special needs infant.
But then the news came out that her seventeen-year-old daughter is pregnant, and it all made sense. In fact, she will appeal to conservative women: if they too believe in abstinence-only education, they probably have pregnant teenage daughters of their own.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Makes sense. One of the most charitable explanations I’ve heard for why social conservatives are so excitable about divorce and teen pregnancy is simply that social conservatives see so much more of it than college-educated liberals.
Anyway, I don’t get the Sarah Palin thing either. I guess she might motivate some conservative voters who hate John McCain. Other than that, it’s a big popcorn-fest watching the Republicans trying to spin her as an expert on Soviet relations, Commander in Chief of the Night’s Watch, et cetera.
I’m just amused by watching conservatives try to spell misogyny when they decry the way people talk about her appearance. Which is, admittedly, a difficult word to spell the first time, and much harder when you’ve spent the morning checking out her glamour shots.
Also, as a BIG fan of hypocrisy – and really, who isn’t? – I like the frisson of her candidacy:
McCain says “country before politics” – then chooses a VP for political reasons, good of the country be damned.
The Republicans say that we shouldn’t make her family an issue – but did you hear that her husband is a champion snowmobile racer? Or that she totally didn’t have an abortion when she found out her kid had Trisomy-21? And that she’s a “hockey mom”?
McCain says that Obama is inexperienced, and that specifically he doesn’t have a foreign policy background – then chooses someone with even less experience.
Palin says she’s against earmarks and the “bridge to nowhere.” Except that she was the requester of 3 of the earmarks that McCain has specifically bitched about and not only supported the “bridge to nowhere,” but instead of telling congress “thanks but no thanks,” which is her current recollection of events, she actually kept the money and didn’t build the bridge.
Oh politicians, you never disappoint.