Some post election thoughts about Palin
I haven’t written on my blog for 2 months. Ironically, the last post I put up was about Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin was also a big reason why I stopped posting. She was such a big part of the election news, but I couldn’t figure out how to write about her, how I felt about her, how to synthesize the jumble of thoughts and emotions I had that surrounded her selection. On the one hand, I couldn’t stand her in an intensly visceral way. She was wrong on so many of the issues, she wasn’t qualified, she was aggressive in all the wrong ways. On the other hand, I viewed her as a strong female role-model, not necesarily for her actions as the VP nominee, and not because of her policies, but as the most popular governor in the United States of America who came to power by her own means. It’s rare for a woman - let alone a popular one - to be in politics who wasn’t the wife or daughter of someone in the business (Nancy Pelosi, the highest ranking woman in American office started in politics because her family was; and we all know Hillary Clinton’s political connection). People criticized Palin for being unqualified for the presidency, should her running mate die while in office, but she didn’t choose to be on the ticket - John McCain put her there, a decision for which I thought he should bear all of the responsibility.
And so I felt in a very odd place: for the first time that I can remember, I felt like defending someone with whom I share few (if any) policy preferences, ideas, cultural ties, etc. I wanted to attack her for her politics and what her rise to political power means for feminism, and yet I wanted to defend her accomplishments as a powerful, independent woman who was doing what any sane politician would do when offered the position to be the vice president of the United States of America. Defending her infuriated me, attacking her felt wrong, and communicating my convoluted thoughts just didn’t seem to be working. So… I didn’t write about her. I posted the rare humorous video and took a break from tumblr and lived life and didn’t participate in conversations about her for the very same reasons.
And now, after election day, someone in the blogosphere has finally posted something about Sarah Palin with which I can completely agree.
Via Jezebel:
Tired of being smeared in the media by disgruntled McCain aides, Sarah Palin took a shot at her critics yesterday, referring to those who have been leaking stories about her spending sprees, “rogue” behavior, and confusion as to whether Africa was a country or a continent as “cruel” and “mean-spirited.” The Governor of Alaska then went on to say this: “It’s immature, it’s unprofessional, and those guys are jerks.” Palin argues that her quotes were taken out of context, and that the clothing scandal is merely a creation of disgruntled McCain staffers that want to throw her under the bus. So does Palin deserve the drubbing she’s been getting in the media? The answer is a bit complicated.
Let’s get this out of the way: we are all sick of hearing about Sarah Palin. She dominated the news cycle during the past two months of the campaign, with everything from her hate-filled rallies to her pregnant daughter to her wardrobe choices finding their way on to the front page of every newspaper in the country. Who is this woman, we asked, where the hell did she come from, and how can we send her back there?
What began as a strong campaign for Palin, with her addition to the ticket boosting McCain’s popularity with disgruntled Clinton supporters and rallying the conservative base, quickly devolved into a wacky politics sideshow: she unraveled on national television in front of Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, two anchors who she should have been able to handle. She came across as unprepared and ignorant, but still maintained millions of fans across the country, who were drawn to her pro-life stance, her folksy huntin’ background, and, of course, her looks and style.
As the McCain campaign sputtered out amidst the economic crisis, Palin’s presence on the ticket was suddenly more curse than blessing; she was blamed for being a drag on the ticket, her approval ratings bottomed out, and Americans began to realize that she would not be ready to take the position of President of the United States, should anything happen to John McCain. Prominent Republicans such as Colin Powell and Chuck Hagel came out against Palin, citing her lack of foreign policy experience as a reason why she was not ready for the job.
And so, on Election Night, we saw Sarah Palin with tears in her eyes, and many of us probably laughed at the screen. She would head back to Wasilla, Alaska, to be greeted by fans at the airport who chanted “2012” as she stepped back into her home territory. The GOP, however, doesn’t seem too pleased about those Palin 2012 plans, piling on the criticism as the McCain campaign is torn to bits by angry former supporters.
It’s extremely easy to laugh at Palin at this point: her ill-preparedness is coming back to get her, and we can all breathe a little easier knowing that our rights, at least for a little while, are in safer hands with the new administration. Throwing Palin under the bus takes the blame off of McCain, though the argument can easily be made that Palin didn’t put herself on the ticket; McCain is more to blame for Palin’s presence on the national stage than Palin herself is.
Yes, Sarah Palin made serious mistakes. Yes, she was a drag on the ticket, due mostly to her own screwups, her inability to answer a damn question, and her extreme-right stances turning off moderates and independents. But to turn John McCain’s nasty campaign on Sarah Palin herself says more about the Senator from Arizona and his staff then it does about the Governor of Alaska.
As Palin’s reputation is torn apart, it’s almost getting difficult to revel in the mudslinging. John McCain is being praised for his “gracious”concession speech, as if 15 minutes of prepared remarks have suddenly wiped away 6 months of all-out nastiness on his behalf, and yet Palin continues to be pummeled by her own former team with rumors of her stupidity, greed, and ambition. McCain didn’t lose because of Sarah Palin; McCain lost because he ran a small, bitter campaign, he didn’t know enough about the economy, and because he listened to Steve Schmidt, who told him to place Palin on the ticket in the first place.
But still: Palin will be the face of McCain’s failures. And though I have no love for Palin, and no respect for her stances on any issues, I can’t help but feel that something is not right here. Even the worst mistakes of Sarah Palin do not negate the fact that she didn’t get here on her own: there are others who deserve the criticism far more than she does.
So, there. I’ve said it. I feel sorry for Sarah Palin. So shoot me. John McCain lost this on his own. She may have contributed to the McCain camp’s downward spiral at the end of the election cycle, but she also gave him the only hope of winning he had in a long and tired cycle that Republicans were nearly destined to lose.
Having gotten this “I feel sorry for her” message out of the way, here’s what does irritate me Palin. Judith Warner of the New York Times wrote: “Palin’s not intimidating, and makes it clear that she’s subordinate to a great man.” Palin, who obviously is incredibly ambitious, masks that ambition behind her PTA placard and “folksy” talk. In the oft-replayed tape from earlier this summer, when asked about the Vice Presidency, Palin notoriously said, ‘“I’m used to bein’ very productive and workin’ real hard in an administration and we want to make sure that that ‘V.P.’ slot would be a fruitful type of position.”
I think what Ms. Warner is dancing around, but not saying outright, is that for a certain kind of feminist, Palin is a symbol for everything we hoped was not true in the world anymore. We hoped that we didn’t have to hide our ambition or pretend that our goals were effortlessly achieved (“I never really set out to be in public affairs, much less to run for this office,” the Governor said when she addressed America at the Democratic National Convention.) We hoped that we could be mothers without having our motherhood be our defining characteristic, as it seems to be for Palin. We hoped that we did not have to be perfect beauty queens to get to where we wanted to be in life, that our looks, good or bad, wouldn’t matter. Whether or not you think it’s appropriate to comment on Palin’s appearance, the fact of her attractiveness exists, and is being used to her advantage by Republican sloganeers (“the hottest Governor in the coldest state,” et. al).
Keith Olbermann called Sarah Palin “Tracy Flick” after her speech at the Republican National Convention, and I don’t think that’s a perfect parallel. Tracy, while completely ruthless (as Palin has shown herself to be so far with that nasty community organizer comment), never hid her ambition behind a polished veneer — it was as plain as the bows in her hair. No, I think the correct high school stereotype for Palin is of the homecoming queen. For many of us looking back at high school, we can now feel a twinge of smug superiority towards the homecoming queen. Sure, she was pretty and popular in high school, catering to the whims of boys and cheering on their hockey/football games, but what happened to her after high school? Often, she popped out some kids and ended up toiling in some not particularly impressive job. We can look back and say, we might have been ambitious nerds in high school, but it ultimately paid off. What’s infuriating, and perhaps rage-inducing, about Palin, is that she has always embodied that perfectly pleasing female archetype, playing by the boys’ game with her big guns, moose-murdering, her subbordinate-to-you [John McCain] facade combined with the closeted ambition she must posess as a sucessful woman in politics… and that she keeps being rewarded for it.
So there are some of my thoughts on Sarah Palin. I hope that she’s able to go back to Alaska and continue to serve her people. My fear is that with all that has transpired in the election, Alaskans won’t like her too much any more. That’s too bad, but that is something for which she is partially responsible. Part of politics is taking risks. She took a risk, and it might’ve back fired on the job that she was doing quite well. Time will tell what’s in store for her now, but I wish her the best… and the worst… from the conflicting parts of my mind and gut.
