Some polls are suggesting that after gaining an initial bump, McCain‘s campaign is being hobbled by Sarah Palin‘s vice-presidential candidacy. The voters who are deserting her fastest, some of whom are even calling on her to withdraw, are mostly women.

Ah, women, the consistently, tragically underestimated constituency. What the Democrats learned during the primaries and the Republicans might now be finding out the hard way, I learned at my very academic, well-regarded all-girls high school: that is never to discount the ability of women to open a robust, committed, well-thought-out vat of hatred for another girl.

It’s a simple three-point pass-fail exam: Will the other girls like her?

Here’s why Palin doesn’t make the grade:

1. She’s too pretty. This is very bad news. At school, pretty girls tend to be liked only by other pretty girls. The rest of us, whose looks hover somewhere around underwhelming, resent them and whisper archly of their “unearned attention.” So, if everyone calls your candidate “hot,” you’re in a whole mess of trouble. If the Pakistani head-of-state more or less hits on her, well, yes, she’ll get a sympathy vote, but we’re in Dukakis-in-the-tank territory. It’s an admiration vaporizer. (Of course a candidate can’t be too ugly, or it will scare the men, who are clearly shallow as a gender.)

2. She’s too confident. This also bodes ill. Women have self-esteem issues. But they also have other-women’s-esteem issues. As almost any woman – from the head of the Budgerigar Breeders association to Queen Elizabeth – can attest, it’s almost impossible to get confidence right. Too timid and you’re a pushover. Too self-aggrandizing and you’re a bad word unless it’s about a dog, or Project Runway‘s Kenley. Or Michelle, my best friend until 9th grade, after she won that debating prize and got cocky.

3. She could embarrass us. History is not on Palin’s side. Every time a woman gets a plum job, be she Hewlett-Packard‘s ex-boss, Carly Fiorina, or CBS‘s Katie Couric, there’s always that whispery fear that people will think she got the job just because she’s a woman. So if things don’t go well – and a couple of YouTube clips have suggested that they’re certainly not going well for Palin – women are the first to turn on her for making it harder for the rest of us to louse up at work.”

The fact of the matter is once a female decides it’s over with another female, it’s like an end-stage marriage. No matter how seemingly benign, every attribute becomes an affront: the hair, the voice, the husband, the moose-shooting, the glasses, the big family, the making rape victims pay for their own rape test kits.

I know, I know. With all this extra baggage a female candidate has to bear, the chances of finding a woman whom other women won’t hate seem skinnier than last year’s jeans. But don’t despair, if all else fails, we could just do what we always do and just vote in some guy. It’s worked so well for us in the past.”

Fo the entire post go to Lynette Long: WHY SOME WOMEN HATE SARAH PALIN.