Tag Archives: John McCain

Is Tina Fey Parody Helping Or Hurting Sarah Palin?

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Image by Surfer Labor via Flickr

Fourteen million people watched Saturday Night Live when Sarah Palin dropped by and took over the stage and the microphone from her late night clone/imitator Tina Fey. In some circles there is no higher compliment or touchstone than to be parodied by SNL. It means you’ve arrived.

There’s little doubt Palin has energized the conservative Republican base and drawn huge, enthusiastic crowds when she speaks. Is she critiqued, marginalized and mocked by the liberal elite? Yes, many of them. Will it make a difference? Maybe not, since the liberal elite are not voting for her anyway. I did read a report from one woman, a Democrat and not a Palin fan, who said, out of curiosity, she attended a Palin rally: “Whatever they may say, Governor Palin is a star. The moment she took command of the stage I knew I hadn’t seen such star power since Bill Clinton’s personality filled the stage. So whatever happens in the election, I think Sarah Palin is going to be a huge star in the Republican party.”

Peggy Noonan, conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and Ronald Reagan speech writer, a member of her own party, does not much like Palin: “There is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office.”

Even if that were true, if Palin ever does get elected to higher office, she certainly wouldn’t be the first president we could say that about. What do you think? Do you find Sarah Palin refreshing and energizing, or ready for the icy trail back to Alaska and the arctic wilderness? Let us hear from you.

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WHY SOME WOMEN HATE SARAH PALIN

Put her out of her misery, please

Image by bobster1985 via Flickr

Lynette Long: WHY SOME WOMEN HATE SARAH PALIN.

This post by Belinda Luscombe was pretty enlightening for me in an unfortunate way.  I have been wondering why a number of women I know and respect get apoplectic at the mention of Sarah Palin.  You can almost see sparks shooting from their hair.  When I try to say “A lot of women are not so much for Sarah Palin as they are against the media riculing her or the talking heads disparaging her” ( because someday we really would like a woman vice president or, better yet, president).  The response I often get, after a rolling of the eyes upward is “No one is disparaging her.  Or at least they’re not disparaging women in general.” I see.  Well, actually, I don’t.  But after reading Belinda Luscombe’s post, I’m beginning to.

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.

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Three Candidates for Vice President : NO QUARTER

Three Candidates for Vice President : NO QUARTER.

Blogger, Bud White contrasts JFK’s choice of Lyndon Johnson to unite the party and give it geographical balance with Obama’s refusal to choose his closest contender Hillary Clinton, defining it as a poor political decision, reinforcing his worst traits.  He also goes on to cast it as a sexist decision which has infuriated and energized some women and as turning the tide of some women against him.

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(Cartoon by Pat Racimora)

Although I ignore Dick Morris when he speaks about the Clintons, his Machiavellian view of politics is often worth listening to closely. Here’s Morris on Palin and women:

Anecdotal evidence already suggests that women may have a gut reaction to the establishment’s sexist assault on a woman candidate – and flock to McCain. They’ve seen him stake everything on this one big move of turning toward a woman – in direct contrast to Obama’s deliberate decision not to name a woman.

They’ve seen the media and Democrats gang up on her and do their worst. And they’ve seen Palin stand up and stuff the challenge right back down the establishment’s throat. All this may have created an entirely new dynamic in the race.

Recent polling data is confirming Morris’ prediction:

An ABC News-Washington Post survey showed white women have moved from backing Obama by 8 points to supporting McCain by 12 points, with majorities viewing Palin favorably and saying she boosts their faith in McCain’s decisions.

For many women, I believe, Obama-Biden represents the worst of the boys club and McCain-Palin have become the agents of change…

Instead of making a peace offering to women by picking Hillary, Obama is now in the position of attacking another woman candidate. It’s starting to look like a pattern. The headline today from the Associated Press, written by Nedra Pickler, is “Obama puts heat on Palin as she boosts GOP ticket.” She writes:

Obama said last week’s Republican National Convention did a good job of highlighting Palin’s biography — “Mother, governor, moose shooter. That’s cool,” he said. But he said Palin really is just another Republican politician, one who is stretching the truth about her record.

“When John McCain gets up there with Sarah Palin and says, `We’re for change,’ … what are they talking about?” Obama said Monday. (emphasis added)

Obama’s use of the pedestrian “cool” is meant to assure us that he is unfazed by Palin, but his need to sound unconcerned makes the desperation almost palpable. Obama is now running against Palin. He doesn’t have a choice. Obama is hemorrhaging women voters. He must stop the bleeding, but his attacks on her only serve to diminish him. Palin has become Obama’s opponent, and his attacks on her inexperience only remind voters of his own inexperience and, even worse, they remind women of what he and his supporters did to Hillary. The attacks on Palin, a woman friend told me today, are beginning to feel like personal attacks on all women.

Instead of having two political giants like Kennedy and Johnson, we have three candidates for vice president, of which Palin is the best, and McCain is reaping the benefit.

Sarah Shocker – Women Count Blog

Sarah Shocker – Women Count Blog

“Wow! McCain definitely knows how to shake things up. Picking Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate today makes it crystal clear – women are the most coveted demographic for both Obama and McCain. It is also clear that Senator Clinton’s candidacy continues to impact the race in unprecedented ways. In fact, many think McCain’s pick is a reaction to Obama not picking Clinton as his running mate. We just listened to Governor Palin’s speech and noticed that she didn’t mention Obama or Biden by name, but she did give props to Senator Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro. Like the rest of the country, we still need to get up to speed on everything about Governor Palin, but there is no doubt that she is pro-life, and really close to Big Oil interests. If McCain thinks we will fall in line simply because he picked a woman – we will give him our own surprise. We know that Senator Clinton’s supporters didn’t just vote for her because she was a woman – they voted for her because she was a qualified woman who was with them on the issues. Stay tuned – WomenCount will uncover the “substance over style” and we will continue to keep you updated as the “Sarah Shocker” plays out”

AdvancingWomen.com’s take on “Sarah Shocker”:

AdvancingWomen doesn’t think we should “fall in line”  as we examine Governor Sarah Palin’s credentials, just because she’s a woman.  We do think, however,  we should be extraordinarily respectful and mindful that, as women, we do share a common history with her, and whoever is elected, we will share a common future, so it would serve us well to look for common ground and ways to work together, whichever side of an issue we fall on. We should all remember that women legislators of both parties have done more for other women than men of either party.

We think Governor Palin’s nomination should give us all hope…. at a time when many of the “first wave” of women advocates, have given up the fight, or settled for achieving their own ambitions without reaching down to give a hand up to other women.  Or they become imbued with a sense of sadness and loss instead of a fighting spirit which inspires them to move on and take up the next challenge.

This morning Ellen Goodman wrote  a kind of sad, elegiac tribute  titled “Curtain call for Clinton’s drama”, http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/08/29/curtain_call_for_clintons_drama/, mentioning the lost battles of Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton, noting “For the first time, the woman checked off the box of experience. And watched it reframed as “old politics.” And “However many speakers talked about the 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, the ceiling is in place. While polls say that women now feel it’s more likely to have a woman president in the future, older women wonder, “In my lifetime?”  Goodman ended with Senator Clinton’s quote: “My mother was born before women could vote. My daughter got to vote for her mother for president. That, for the moment”, wrote Goodman” is history enough.”

AdvancingWomen.com respectfully disagrees.  That is not history enough. We are thrilled to welcome Governor Sarah Palin into the race.  Of course she will be imperfect like every man who’s ever served, just like Jefferson and Lincoln and John Kennedy.  Of course she won’t agree with us on every issue.  As women trying to crack the glass ceiling, we should offer a big enough tent to allow people to have civil debate and try to reach common ground. We don’t think serious, thoughtful people will vote for Governor Sarah Palin just because she is a woman any more than some people would vote for Barack Obama just because he is a Democrat.  Hopefully they will study the candidates in depth and in context and make a judgment on the totality of the issues before casting their vote.
But, in the meantime, the valiant run  of Senator Clinton and the bold nomination of Governor Sarah Palin are just two more steps on a long , steep road that will eventually take a woman crashing through that highest and hardest glass ceiling and into the seat of power in the Oval Office.  AdvancingWomen looks forward to all of us working together to do everything possible to make that day come sooner rather than later, starting with developing that women’s farm team, with electing women dog catchers and sheriffs, city council women and school superintendents, mayors, governors, senators and ultimately….Madame President.

Introducing Sarah Palin, Presumptive Republican Vice Presidential Nominee

Introducint Sarah Palin

Introducinf Sarah Palin

Introducing Sarah Palin -  current Governor of Alaska, and the presumptive Republican vice presidential candidate for the November 2008 election.[1] She is the second female Vice Presidential candidate representing a major American political party (the first was Geraldine Ferraro), first Republican.

Energy Issues

Palin’s tenure is noted for her independence from big oil companies, while still promoting resource development.[10][9] Palin has announced plans to create a new sub-cabinet group of advisors, to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions within Alaska.[19]

Social Issues

Palin is strongly pro-life and belongs to Feminists for Life.[12] She opposes same-sex marriage, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination.[12] While the previous administration did not implement same-sex benefits, Palin complied with a state Supreme Court order and signed them into law.[32]

Budget

In the first days of her administration, Palin followed through on a campaign promise to sell the Westwind II jet purchased (on a state government credit account) by the Murkowski administration. The state placed the jet for sale on eBay three times. In August 2007, the jet was sold for $2.7 million.[40]

Shortly after becoming governor, Palin canceled an 11-mile (18-kilometer) gravel road outside of Juneau to a mine. This reversed a decision made in the closing days or hours of the Murkowski Administration.[41]

In June 2007, Palin signed into law the largest operating budget in Alaska’s history ($6.6 billion).[42] At the same time, she used her veto power to make the second-largest cuts of the construction budget in state history. The US$237 million in cuts represented over 300 local projects, and reduced the construction budget to nearly US$1.6 billion.[43]