Game Changer

[richlevy]

So, just caught a bit of the Sarah Palin biopic. I intend to watch it fully tomorrow. This thread could go into Entertainment, but since it's mostly going to be a discussion of Palin's candidacy, I thought I'd put it here.

Certainly the Dems have floated lightweight VP candidates in the past, so there was no reason for the Republicans not to bow to expediency, but was Palin different?

[ZenGum]

was Palin different?

What, you mean she's Jewish?

[Griff]

Originally Posted by richlevy

Certainly the Dems have floated lightweight VP candidates in the past, so there was no reason for the Republicans not to bow to expediency, but was Palin different?

I'd have to think about it, but to me Palin is more dangerous than lightweight. We may get another dangerous lightweight in Santorum. If I was Mitt, I'd avoid that guy due to the armed-crackpot Santorum supporter angle.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by richlevy

<snip>

Certainly the Dems have floated lightweight VP candidates in the past,
so there was no reason for the Republicans not to bow to expediency,
but was Palin different?

That's not true about Democratic VP candidates... Dan Quail only misspelled one word.






Oh wait. Nevermind

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

That's not true about Democratic VP candidates... Dan Quail only misspelled one word.

Mr. Quayle is doing very well for himself. What's funny is that he ran against GWB in the Republican presidential primaries and criticized him for his 'lack of experience'.

He's endorsing Romney this time around.

As far as Democratic VP's went, Edwards appeared smarter than Quayle, at least when he was thinking with his 'big head'.

[Lamplighter]

Back to OP

My wife and I are still arguing about Sarah Palin. My wife just despises her. I don't.

I see Palin as a perfect example of the US Miss America Beauty contests.
A woman who is good looking and learns how to please others when in public,
and say exactly what is needed in order to be likable at the moment.
Palin quickly learned she could do that very well with the far right.
But beyond that, there's no there there.

Sort of the opposite of Mitt Romney, who can't ever seem to say the right thing in public.
But maybe, there's no there there, either.

Back to Palin, I see her nomination as the epitomy of McCain's personality.
As I remember it, McCain was essentially told by the Republican hierarchy
that he could not select either of the two Senators he wanted (Liberman or Graham),
and, in something of a fit of pique to have his own way, he announced Palin,
without ever having even met her beyond that one-day visit in Arizona.
I imagine one of his thoughts the next day was "O God, what have I done"

Palin then went on to upstage McCain at public rallies... until she imploded.


ETA: I just read somewhere that McCain wanted others for VP,
than Lieberman and Graham. Sorry if my memory is faulty.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Back to OP
ETA: I just read somewhere that McCain wanted others for VP,
than Lieberman and Graham. Sorry if my memory is faulty.

From his interview on 3/11/12
Former Republican presidential nominee John McCain is still adamant that
no one was more qualified than Sarah Palin to be vice president in 2008.

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday asked the Arizona senator to respond to
HBO’s movie “Game Change,” which implies that he only selected Palin because she was a woman.

“I thought she was the best qualified person,” McCain insisted. “I thought she had the ability to excite our party,
and the kind of person that I wanted to see succeed in the political arena. She was a very effective and successful governor.
Again, I look forward and not back.”

Link

[infinite monkey]

I think Sarah Palin was a willing participant in a campaign to make women in politics look unstable and stupid. Too many women were going too far, shaking up the status quo. Hillary scared the hell out of them, so let's just remind everyone how cocoa puffs women are.

She's a big giant shame.

Yes, I have tinfoil hat on. That is my own personal conspiracy theory.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

I think Sarah Palin was a willing participant in a campaign to make women in politics look unstable and stupid. Too many women were going too far, shaking up the status quo. Hillary scared the hell out of them, so let's just remind everyone how cocoa puffs women are.

She's a big giant shame.

Yes, I have tinfoil hat on. That is my own personal conspiracy theory.

I don't think there's a conspiracy. That said, I do think we see in Palin's role, a continuation of a much older pattern.

There is (and has always been) in American, and in British, culture a sense of disquiet over politically successful women. It's a pervading disquiet and applies almost equally to female voters/audience as male. Politicians like Hilary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi come in for all the usual political attacks in the media, but there is the addition of a kind of meta criticism of them as women standing in men's shoes.

Many of the attacks on them in the media are centred around their femininity or lack thereof. Their suitability as mothers, wives and sexual beings are at the centre of their political identity, whether they choose that or not.

Meanwhile, without doubt the most damaging attack that can be made on a male politician is any hint of femininity (either in terms of sexual orientation, or in the sense of being 'soft').

In many ways this just mirrors society in general. But in the political sphere it takes on an added urgency.

In the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, the criticism most commonly levelled against women who participated (or attempted to do so) in political life was that they were 'unsexed' by that activity. That in taking part in political culture they were setting aside their womanly identity and adopting a male one. We no longer use the word 'unsexed', but the core of that critique remains in force.

Throughout this period, from time to time, a figure like Palin emerges. Sometimes that woman is a nutter. Sometimes she's cleverer than her male patrons. But she is usually very conservative, pro 'proper' female roles and yet, is waltzing comfortably through the male political sphere as she advocates a return to true femininity.

Margeret Thatcher is a classic example of this. She carried her traditional femininity like a badge of honour, and rose to the top as a stronger figure than any of her male colleagues. Politically, she did much to damage the quest for gender equality in the UK, even as her very presence at No.10 broke down walls.

Hannah More, writing in the late 18th/early 19th century is the person that usually springs to mnind for me on this. Uber conservative, strong advocate of proper gender roles for men and women and yet even as she was advocating it she was herself employing a political voice, and acting in the public sphere. She was the cultural and political antidote to writers like Wollstonecraft, whose ventures onto the public stage earned her the soubriquet of 'Female Politician' and 'Unsex'd creature'.

Women participating in the political sphere were lumped together as a 'monstrous regiment', echoing the 16th century treatise by Knox, who wrote specifically against the two female monarchs who reigned in Britain (Scotland and England).

Palin is/was the acceptably feminine antidote to the unsex'd, monstrous regiment of Clinton and Pelosi.

[Sheldonrs]

Originally Posted by DanaC

...

Many of the attacks on them in the media are centred around their femininity or lack thereof. Their suitability as mothers, wives and sexual beings are at the centre of their political identity, whether they choose that or not.

...

I guess the old axiom would then change to "The only way she can lose is if they find a dead man or a live woman in her bed.".

[Pico and ME]

Take off that hat, IM. The numbers actually prove your theory out. The United States ranks 74th for number of women in government.

[Undertoad]

A woman who is good looking and learns how to please others when in public, and say exactly what is needed in order to be likable at the moment.

Exactly the same description of any politically successful man, except the woman part.

I'm with IM here, except that it has been ultimately a money play for her. And a deal we would all make, with the big needy family in tow. You have the choice: continue being Governor for $125K a year; or make $12M in 2 years being adored by big crowds on the book tours and getting big TV deals for you and your kids. Either way you get the shit beaten out of you by all major media... pick one.

[ZenGum]

This is what has become of the beacon of hope, the shining light on the hill...

[shakes head sadly]

[Lamplighter]

Exactly the same description of any politically successful man, except the woman part.

and the part about being good looking,
and the part about there being no there, there.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

and the part about being good looking,
and the part about there being no there, there.

If you don't think that applies to the men, we have a different view of politics.