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verushka70omg. I watched part of Giuliani's speech last night, and saw all of Palins and all I can say is "no, no, NO, nonononononononono PLEASE no! We've had enough!"
Oh, and this (below), which I left in an extremely long ranty comment on a Chicago Sun-Times article about "Pit bull Palin," (oh PLEASE, people, PLEASE! Do you NOT SEE what is being done??) signed with my other other pseud, Voltairine. (I never register with newspapers with my REAL name or email. God no.)
Although I tuned in halfway through Guiliani's audience prep speech for Palin, and yelled back at the television several times, I have to hand it to Palin. She had an incredibly slickly written speech, all sound-bites and one-liners and well-chosen barbs at Obama/Biden.
I think we're doomed to see a McCain/Palin victory.
Palin's speech could EASILY sway all the undecideds who who simply want to vote for the LESSER of two evils, and who will no doubt see media investigations of Palin's political (and personal) past as an unseemly "attack" on Palin by a "liberally biased" media (a view which Guiliani helped foster in his speech).
Unfortunately, for all that we don't yet know about Palin (and all we do), there is one thing I can definitely say: the woman can speak in public, and she has charisma. I don't know who wrote her speech -- whether it was her, or (most likely) some professional speech writer -- but it fit our "sound bite" media perfectly. (Of course, she *was* preaching to the choir.) And so does her image.
Someone commented earlier here that we are in a world where the media affects politics, and people should just get used to it. I agree. We've been in that world ever since the Nixon vs. JFK debates where Nixon sweated like a pig and JFK appeared cool, calm, and collected. Like it or not, personal appearance, being photogenic, and being able to speak in sound bites play heavily in current politics. W himself is proof that when you have the right writers, the right handlers, the right clothes and the right make up, and you refuse to take questions that weren't pre-approved before your press conference, you can make fascism sound like patriotism and make your lies sound like truths.
What worries me are all the undecided voters who also watched Palin's speech.
You know how, when you're discussing something with someone, and they start to twist the argument around in a passive aggressive way, and you start to ask yourself, "Didn't I just say that??" because they are making you feel crazy? That's how Palin -- and the entire RNC tonight -- came across to me. You know what that feeling means, right? When you start to feel crazy in a conversation or an altercation with someone, it's a dead tip-off that *the other person* is the crazy one, because only someone crazy would make someone else think THEY are crazy while not realizing that they are, in fact, truly the crazy one. In short, sociopathy.
Well, that's how some of Giuliani's -- and almost ALL of Palin's -- speeches came across: "Wait, you can't say that -- that's something a Democrat / feminist / union member would say! How can you be saying that? Am I hearing wrong? Are these not the values of Democrats that you are espousing in your speech at the REPUBLICAN National Convention?"
They were some of the best and slipperiest manipulations I've ever seen -- and heaven knows we've had loads of doublespeak from the moment W was selected. But Palin takes the prize. She is truly the icing on the cake. She must take power yoga or something, in order to twist herself into such contorted politically opposing positions.
There was so little of substance in Palin's speech, and yet it came off as if she is re-inventing feminism! The media (Liberal bias? Meet my butt. Talk amongst yourselves) have truly stepped in it -- and then shoved their collective foot in their mouth on top of it. They had the TEMERITY to ask if a woman with five kids can have enough time to spend on being VP. Oh my God, stop the press, the media have asked something THE REPUBLICANS ASKED slightly inversely decades ago with the Dukakis/Ferrero ticket (and before that, in the 70s, when the Equal Rights Amendment still had a snowball's chance in h-ll of passing). (As if these things are mutually exclusive--which any working mother knows they are not.)
The Republican Party so cleverly went on the offensive and took media to task for even suggesting such a thing -- as if to say, "Look at this great woman! Governor of Alaska, yet still a pro-life, breeder mom at heart! How dare you suggest she can't also be vice president!" Even though, decades ago, they themselves were stating that same position...
So now we know True Grit is only the first facet of how they'll spin Palin in the next two months.
Giuliani's repeated "How dare they!"s was the first of many slippery Republican moves to come in the future. Wasn't this what anti-single mom, anti-equal-rights-for-equal-work, Operation-Rescue-supporting, pro-life ranting, anti-liberal Limbaugh Republicans were asking in the late 80s and 90s? "How can those working women be proper mothers!" is just the inverse of "How can those mothers be proper working women! and politicians! and CEOs and whatnot!" And the Limbaugh-lovers complained that political correctness practically *gagged* them from asking such hard-hitting questions! But fast forward 20+ years -- the audacity of it! -- and NOW the Republicans took it, twisted it inside out, and slipped it on like an iron fist in a kid glove. Well played.
And Palin didn't let them down, did she? No way -- even joking that the difference between a hockey mom like her and a pit bull is "lipstick." (Spin, spin, spin...) Palin is practically the perfect white conservative Republican male fantasy come to life: she likes guns and snowmobiles, she's a breeder (and, by inference, one who has sex -- five times now, maybe more!), she claims to hold conservative beliefs, and -- sometimes subtly, and sometimes unsubtly -- comes across as a hot, conservative, feisty, outdoorsy, hunting and fishing woman such men would like to think is also a firecracker in her private life. (Don't believe me? Do a Google search on "hottest candidate.")
I naturally expected all her and Guiliani's references to God, faith, and patriotism; they're part and parcel of the pro-gun, pro-life, pro-war, pro-death-penalty trick bag the Republicans have been in for years.
But Palin pulled some rabbits out of that hat, boy. Like her statement that her husband is both a production operator "in the oil fields of Alaska's North Slope" AND a member of the United Steel Workers Union. Whoa! the "Applause!" lights must not have been blinking appropriately, because conventioneers gave only weak and scattered applause for that. But the genius, the sheer genius of it!! And she capped it off with mentioning her husband's Yup'ik Inuit ancestry (in Alaskan natives' least favorite term: "Eskimo"). Wow! This Republican VP candidate's family values include a pro-oil-drilling, union-member, minority-blooded husband. She -- or her handlers -- have managed to superficially mingle traditional bedrock Democratic values like labor and minority rights with a capitalistic, kill-the-planet pro-drilling mindset! It's like toothpaste and orange juice, two tastes that NEVER belong together. But Palin could swallow them together and SMILE because she says they DO belong together, and she makes it BELIEVABLE.
To top it off, she's got a five-months pregnant 17 year old daughter who'll have her shotgun wedding *after* the baby is born. Palin can ride last year's feel-good "Juno" (written by an ex-stripper, btw - I'm just sayin') wave all the way to the White House. Somehow, suddenly, Guiliani implies it is WRONG to inquire about the personal lives of politicians or candidates -- as if requiring politicians who put themselves forth as moral leaders to actually *support* the beliefs they espouse (and want to enforce on the rest of us), at the very least BY EXAMPLE, is totally uncalled for.
(My bad! Was I the only one who thought "HYPOCRITE!" as Democratic president Clinton was grilled for lying about an affair in the 1990s, at the urging of an ultra-conservative Republican representative -- Hyde -- who initially lied about his affair in the late 1960s? A "youthful indiscretion," Rep. Henry Hyde, R-IL called his five year affair on his wife, though he was 41 at the time--LONG before "40 is the new 30" thinking, and during the "don't trust anyone over 30" popular mindset.
But it's all okay now! Hypocrisy is yet another passe term in our post-W, Orwellian American politics (the words "Orwellian" and "doublespeak" no longer outrage anyone, sigh; we're living them). We've got an abstinence-believing, anti-sex-ed female Republican VP candidate (with a pregnant teenage daughter), whom the media have described as having a "sexy librarian" look, and whose suddenly fanatical believers proudly wear "Hottest Candidate" buttons. What, me worry?
Oh, those pesky, no-fun old-guard feminists. They complained so much about the way critiques of Hillary's femininity and appearance were used to detract from the substance of her beliefs, policies, and her call-outs to her detractors. (Or, harking back, the critiques of femininity and appearance used to detract from Anita Hill. Or Carol Moseley Braun. Or Geraldine Ferrero. But I digress.)
But Palin? She's going to use this to her advantage, too. She's not taking "hottest candidate" as an insulting reduction of her intellect, capabilities, and political values. SO old-guard feminist.
She's going to use that special, slick Republican handler help to run with her "sexy librarian" look all the way to the White House. A "Soccer Moms" sub-genre of porn already exists, but I have no doubt new ones will be created based on Palin. I can see it now: "Dirty sexy Librarian Hockey Moms!" "sexy Librarian Hockey Moms GONE WILD!"
And you know what? Palin gives you the feeling that she might just be okay with that. As long as, like, it isn't REALLY controversial, like interracial sex between anyone other than whites and part-Yup'ik "Eskimos."
Are there skeletons in her closet? Maybe. Dunno yet. But she's not going to fade away like Republican Jack Ryan did from his failed Illinois senatorial primary bid after a judge's order released some (not all) of his sealed divorce documents and showed his would-be constituents that his conservative Republican values included live sex shows and BDSM sex clubs in Paris and New York, and trying to get his wife (Jeri Ryan) to have sex with him while other men or couples watched. Nope. Obama should be grateful for that judge's decision -- he had a clear lead before the scandal broke, but after it broke and Ryan withdrew, there was really no viable GOP candidate to replace Ryan and run against Obama.
(THANK GOD. I mean, at least Obama wasn't going to shove his BS "family values" down our -- his constituents' -- throats, while privately considering himself above adherence to said "family values." Hey, if you want to swing with your spouse and go to kinky clubs, I say knock yourself out. You only live once. If that's your boat, float it. But DON'T COME AROUND talking to us about your FAMILY VALUES when what you REALLY want is to have sex in voyeuristic groups or to get spanked or flogged or what have you -- and to prevent the REST of us from also doing so if we feel like it, by passing all kinds of legislation against the many and varied ways we fly our freak flags. Because unless you'd be okay with your KIDS finding out just what it is you do, other than procreate -- and Jack Ryan most definitely was NOT -- then those aren't "family values," and you should put your money where your mouth is, or just cave to it, fly your freak flag, and come over to the wacky side where you obviously belong, because we don't bite. Much. Unless you want us to.)
Anyway, I've got news for Giuliani: IT IS ONLY FAIR to call someone on their personal behavior when they publicly state that their personal values are "family values" and they want to force their values on everyone else. Yet I have a feeling that if Palin has any such scandals in her past, it will only BOOST her appeal.
The bottom line is that Palin is relatively young, earthy, and hot -- and she knows it. Hillary (and all the past female senators and judges and attorney generals and governors and candidates on whose shoulders Hillary stood on in her bid for Democratic presidential candidate) -- they're from a different era of women, an era of women who felt they had to prove to everyone (and themselves) that They Could Do It and All By Themselves Without A Man, thank you very much. And They Didn't Use Their Feminine Wiles To Do It, Either. They unwittingly (or wittingly?) portrayed themselves as Super Smart -- which, like it or not, also came with (through no fault of their own at the times in which they matured) Not sexy and also Not Needing Men. Hillary was about as gracious and forgiving as you could want a woman to be, given that she was the First Lady in a long term marriage with the president while his infidelities with an intern less than half her age were dissected explicitly and daily on C-SPAN for months. (Or was it years?)
But -- admit it -- in the back of the Average American's mind was, "Well, look at her. She's an Ice Queen. Bill was giving it to Monica because Hillary didn't need or want it anymore."
Sarah Palin gives off a very strong vibe of NOT being that kind of woman. Palin is being put forth -- and puts herself forth -- as an ambitious, up-and-coming, hot, young female candidate who doesn't mind letting a man get doors and dinner for her. She can shoot her own guns and hunt and fish and snowmobile and govern Alaska, but she doesn't make her husband seem superfluous.
(Of course, Hillary really wasn't, either. The only reason Bill came off as potentially superfluous to Hillary -- I mean, except for being PRESIDENT and all -- is that Hillary comes from money, and Bill does not. But the richer spouse always makes the poorer seem somewhat superfluous by comparison in an economic system that values money most of all, now, doesn't it? Oh, drat, my pesky Marxism is acting up. I'd better take some Advil.)
And Palin won't mask her good looks and charm to be taken "more seriously." She will use them, and every other advantage she has -- including being the "hottest candidate" -- in the way we would expect a youngish woman of the post-SATC, post-Madonna era to: to cover up a LOT. To cover up the fact that she's too young, too inexperienced, has no foreign policy, her current pipeline project will run a significant portion through Canada (giving a ton of Alaskan jobs to Canada -- so much for "Alaska first"), her approval ratings are NOT 90% (they're 67% -- partially because of the fact that...), she's under investigation in her own state, she's wants only creationism taught in schools, doesn't think teens need sex education (well, just look what abstinence-based sex ed did for her daughter), she opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest (Sun-Times comment censor bots are making me edit words, grr), she smoked marijuana when it was legal in Alaska but illegal according to US federal laws (wow, that's very new Republican of her, don't you think?), wants polar bears off the list of endangered species while their habitat and the permafrost melt away, opposes protections for salmon (one of Alaska's major sport fish) from mines and mining contaminants, wants health care to be "market and business driven" (isn't that the problem?? Vioxx, Bextra, HRT, anyone?), thinks that her husband's employment at BP is NOT a conflict of interest in her governmental dealings with the oil industry because he's not in a management position, and opposes stem cell research.
(http://www.ontheissues.org/ -- who state that "Our mission is to provide non-partisan information for voters in the Presidential election, so that votes can be based on issues rather than on personalities and popularity." Yeah. Good luck with that. Nice site, tho'.)
But who cares about all that. Bottom line, this is what most guys will think after seeing her speech at the RNC (from http://www.realitywired.com/governor-sarah-palin-americas-hottest-candidate.html)
"Here at Reality Wired, we're concerned with more important matters, like is Governor Palin the hottest American candidate ever? I mean come one, you gotta give McCain points for adding eye candy to the ticket because the blogosphere is alive with discussion on just how hot this mother of five from Alaska is. . . .
Sure, that doesn't qualify her to run the country but when's the last time you looked at Hillary and went hmmmm... nice!! Yeah, exactly."
And all the undecided female voter spouses or girlfriends of those guys will look at Sarah Palin, and if they squint, they'll see themselves as they WOULD LIKE to be, working and mothering and thinking of all the great things they could achieve if they had the money and power and hotness to do it. And they'll want Palin to win. Just as all those Hillary supporters so wanted Hillary to win, and are so bitterly disappointed that they're not committing to Obama just yet.
It's sad that we have to choose lesser evils, but that's the two party trick bag we're in, here in the US. And no matter what either of them say about reform, both parties would really like to keep it this way. You can tell by the way each becomes more and more like the other.
Oh, and this (below), which I left in an extremely long ranty comment on a Chicago Sun-Times article about "Pit bull Palin," (oh PLEASE, people, PLEASE! Do you NOT SEE what is being done??) signed with my other other pseud, Voltairine. (I never register with newspapers with my REAL name or email. God no.)
Although I tuned in halfway through Guiliani's audience prep speech for Palin, and yelled back at the television several times, I have to hand it to Palin. She had an incredibly slickly written speech, all sound-bites and one-liners and well-chosen barbs at Obama/Biden.
I think we're doomed to see a McCain/Palin victory.
Palin's speech could EASILY sway all the undecideds who who simply want to vote for the LESSER of two evils, and who will no doubt see media investigations of Palin's political (and personal) past as an unseemly "attack" on Palin by a "liberally biased" media (a view which Guiliani helped foster in his speech).
Unfortunately, for all that we don't yet know about Palin (and all we do), there is one thing I can definitely say: the woman can speak in public, and she has charisma. I don't know who wrote her speech -- whether it was her, or (most likely) some professional speech writer -- but it fit our "sound bite" media perfectly. (Of course, she *was* preaching to the choir.) And so does her image.
Someone commented earlier here that we are in a world where the media affects politics, and people should just get used to it. I agree. We've been in that world ever since the Nixon vs. JFK debates where Nixon sweated like a pig and JFK appeared cool, calm, and collected. Like it or not, personal appearance, being photogenic, and being able to speak in sound bites play heavily in current politics. W himself is proof that when you have the right writers, the right handlers, the right clothes and the right make up, and you refuse to take questions that weren't pre-approved before your press conference, you can make fascism sound like patriotism and make your lies sound like truths.
What worries me are all the undecided voters who also watched Palin's speech.
You know how, when you're discussing something with someone, and they start to twist the argument around in a passive aggressive way, and you start to ask yourself, "Didn't I just say that??" because they are making you feel crazy? That's how Palin -- and the entire RNC tonight -- came across to me. You know what that feeling means, right? When you start to feel crazy in a conversation or an altercation with someone, it's a dead tip-off that *the other person* is the crazy one, because only someone crazy would make someone else think THEY are crazy while not realizing that they are, in fact, truly the crazy one. In short, sociopathy.
Well, that's how some of Giuliani's -- and almost ALL of Palin's -- speeches came across: "Wait, you can't say that -- that's something a Democrat / feminist / union member would say! How can you be saying that? Am I hearing wrong? Are these not the values of Democrats that you are espousing in your speech at the REPUBLICAN National Convention?"
They were some of the best and slipperiest manipulations I've ever seen -- and heaven knows we've had loads of doublespeak from the moment W was selected. But Palin takes the prize. She is truly the icing on the cake. She must take power yoga or something, in order to twist herself into such contorted politically opposing positions.
There was so little of substance in Palin's speech, and yet it came off as if she is re-inventing feminism! The media (Liberal bias? Meet my butt. Talk amongst yourselves) have truly stepped in it -- and then shoved their collective foot in their mouth on top of it. They had the TEMERITY to ask if a woman with five kids can have enough time to spend on being VP. Oh my God, stop the press, the media have asked something THE REPUBLICANS ASKED slightly inversely decades ago with the Dukakis/Ferrero ticket (and before that, in the 70s, when the Equal Rights Amendment still had a snowball's chance in h-ll of passing). (As if these things are mutually exclusive--which any working mother knows they are not.)
The Republican Party so cleverly went on the offensive and took media to task for even suggesting such a thing -- as if to say, "Look at this great woman! Governor of Alaska, yet still a pro-life, breeder mom at heart! How dare you suggest she can't also be vice president!" Even though, decades ago, they themselves were stating that same position...
So now we know True Grit is only the first facet of how they'll spin Palin in the next two months.
Giuliani's repeated "How dare they!"s was the first of many slippery Republican moves to come in the future. Wasn't this what anti-single mom, anti-equal-rights-for-equal-work, Operation-Rescue-supporting, pro-life ranting, anti-liberal Limbaugh Republicans were asking in the late 80s and 90s? "How can those working women be proper mothers!" is just the inverse of "How can those mothers be proper working women! and politicians! and CEOs and whatnot!" And the Limbaugh-lovers complained that political correctness practically *gagged* them from asking such hard-hitting questions! But fast forward 20+ years -- the audacity of it! -- and NOW the Republicans took it, twisted it inside out, and slipped it on like an iron fist in a kid glove. Well played.
And Palin didn't let them down, did she? No way -- even joking that the difference between a hockey mom like her and a pit bull is "lipstick." (Spin, spin, spin...) Palin is practically the perfect white conservative Republican male fantasy come to life: she likes guns and snowmobiles, she's a breeder (and, by inference, one who has sex -- five times now, maybe more!), she claims to hold conservative beliefs, and -- sometimes subtly, and sometimes unsubtly -- comes across as a hot, conservative, feisty, outdoorsy, hunting and fishing woman such men would like to think is also a firecracker in her private life. (Don't believe me? Do a Google search on "hottest candidate.")
I naturally expected all her and Guiliani's references to God, faith, and patriotism; they're part and parcel of the pro-gun, pro-life, pro-war, pro-death-penalty trick bag the Republicans have been in for years.
But Palin pulled some rabbits out of that hat, boy. Like her statement that her husband is both a production operator "in the oil fields of Alaska's North Slope" AND a member of the United Steel Workers Union. Whoa! the "Applause!" lights must not have been blinking appropriately, because conventioneers gave only weak and scattered applause for that. But the genius, the sheer genius of it!! And she capped it off with mentioning her husband's Yup'ik Inuit ancestry (in Alaskan natives' least favorite term: "Eskimo"). Wow! This Republican VP candidate's family values include a pro-oil-drilling, union-member, minority-blooded husband. She -- or her handlers -- have managed to superficially mingle traditional bedrock Democratic values like labor and minority rights with a capitalistic, kill-the-planet pro-drilling mindset! It's like toothpaste and orange juice, two tastes that NEVER belong together. But Palin could swallow them together and SMILE because she says they DO belong together, and she makes it BELIEVABLE.
To top it off, she's got a five-months pregnant 17 year old daughter who'll have her shotgun wedding *after* the baby is born. Palin can ride last year's feel-good "Juno" (written by an ex-stripper, btw - I'm just sayin') wave all the way to the White House. Somehow, suddenly, Guiliani implies it is WRONG to inquire about the personal lives of politicians or candidates -- as if requiring politicians who put themselves forth as moral leaders to actually *support* the beliefs they espouse (and want to enforce on the rest of us), at the very least BY EXAMPLE, is totally uncalled for.
(My bad! Was I the only one who thought "HYPOCRITE!" as Democratic president Clinton was grilled for lying about an affair in the 1990s, at the urging of an ultra-conservative Republican representative -- Hyde -- who initially lied about his affair in the late 1960s? A "youthful indiscretion," Rep. Henry Hyde, R-IL called his five year affair on his wife, though he was 41 at the time--LONG before "40 is the new 30" thinking, and during the "don't trust anyone over 30" popular mindset.
But it's all okay now! Hypocrisy is yet another passe term in our post-W, Orwellian American politics (the words "Orwellian" and "doublespeak" no longer outrage anyone, sigh; we're living them). We've got an abstinence-believing, anti-sex-ed female Republican VP candidate (with a pregnant teenage daughter), whom the media have described as having a "sexy librarian" look, and whose suddenly fanatical believers proudly wear "Hottest Candidate" buttons. What, me worry?
Oh, those pesky, no-fun old-guard feminists. They complained so much about the way critiques of Hillary's femininity and appearance were used to detract from the substance of her beliefs, policies, and her call-outs to her detractors. (Or, harking back, the critiques of femininity and appearance used to detract from Anita Hill. Or Carol Moseley Braun. Or Geraldine Ferrero. But I digress.)
But Palin? She's going to use this to her advantage, too. She's not taking "hottest candidate" as an insulting reduction of her intellect, capabilities, and political values. SO old-guard feminist.
She's going to use that special, slick Republican handler help to run with her "sexy librarian" look all the way to the White House. A "Soccer Moms" sub-genre of porn already exists, but I have no doubt new ones will be created based on Palin. I can see it now: "Dirty sexy Librarian Hockey Moms!" "sexy Librarian Hockey Moms GONE WILD!"
And you know what? Palin gives you the feeling that she might just be okay with that. As long as, like, it isn't REALLY controversial, like interracial sex between anyone other than whites and part-Yup'ik "Eskimos."
Are there skeletons in her closet? Maybe. Dunno yet. But she's not going to fade away like Republican Jack Ryan did from his failed Illinois senatorial primary bid after a judge's order released some (not all) of his sealed divorce documents and showed his would-be constituents that his conservative Republican values included live sex shows and BDSM sex clubs in Paris and New York, and trying to get his wife (Jeri Ryan) to have sex with him while other men or couples watched. Nope. Obama should be grateful for that judge's decision -- he had a clear lead before the scandal broke, but after it broke and Ryan withdrew, there was really no viable GOP candidate to replace Ryan and run against Obama.
(THANK GOD. I mean, at least Obama wasn't going to shove his BS "family values" down our -- his constituents' -- throats, while privately considering himself above adherence to said "family values." Hey, if you want to swing with your spouse and go to kinky clubs, I say knock yourself out. You only live once. If that's your boat, float it. But DON'T COME AROUND talking to us about your FAMILY VALUES when what you REALLY want is to have sex in voyeuristic groups or to get spanked or flogged or what have you -- and to prevent the REST of us from also doing so if we feel like it, by passing all kinds of legislation against the many and varied ways we fly our freak flags. Because unless you'd be okay with your KIDS finding out just what it is you do, other than procreate -- and Jack Ryan most definitely was NOT -- then those aren't "family values," and you should put your money where your mouth is, or just cave to it, fly your freak flag, and come over to the wacky side where you obviously belong, because we don't bite. Much. Unless you want us to.)
Anyway, I've got news for Giuliani: IT IS ONLY FAIR to call someone on their personal behavior when they publicly state that their personal values are "family values" and they want to force their values on everyone else. Yet I have a feeling that if Palin has any such scandals in her past, it will only BOOST her appeal.
The bottom line is that Palin is relatively young, earthy, and hot -- and she knows it. Hillary (and all the past female senators and judges and attorney generals and governors and candidates on whose shoulders Hillary stood on in her bid for Democratic presidential candidate) -- they're from a different era of women, an era of women who felt they had to prove to everyone (and themselves) that They Could Do It and All By Themselves Without A Man, thank you very much. And They Didn't Use Their Feminine Wiles To Do It, Either. They unwittingly (or wittingly?) portrayed themselves as Super Smart -- which, like it or not, also came with (through no fault of their own at the times in which they matured) Not sexy and also Not Needing Men. Hillary was about as gracious and forgiving as you could want a woman to be, given that she was the First Lady in a long term marriage with the president while his infidelities with an intern less than half her age were dissected explicitly and daily on C-SPAN for months. (Or was it years?)
But -- admit it -- in the back of the Average American's mind was, "Well, look at her. She's an Ice Queen. Bill was giving it to Monica because Hillary didn't need or want it anymore."
Sarah Palin gives off a very strong vibe of NOT being that kind of woman. Palin is being put forth -- and puts herself forth -- as an ambitious, up-and-coming, hot, young female candidate who doesn't mind letting a man get doors and dinner for her. She can shoot her own guns and hunt and fish and snowmobile and govern Alaska, but she doesn't make her husband seem superfluous.
(Of course, Hillary really wasn't, either. The only reason Bill came off as potentially superfluous to Hillary -- I mean, except for being PRESIDENT and all -- is that Hillary comes from money, and Bill does not. But the richer spouse always makes the poorer seem somewhat superfluous by comparison in an economic system that values money most of all, now, doesn't it? Oh, drat, my pesky Marxism is acting up. I'd better take some Advil.)
And Palin won't mask her good looks and charm to be taken "more seriously." She will use them, and every other advantage she has -- including being the "hottest candidate" -- in the way we would expect a youngish woman of the post-SATC, post-Madonna era to: to cover up a LOT. To cover up the fact that she's too young, too inexperienced, has no foreign policy, her current pipeline project will run a significant portion through Canada (giving a ton of Alaskan jobs to Canada -- so much for "Alaska first"), her approval ratings are NOT 90% (they're 67% -- partially because of the fact that...), she's under investigation in her own state, she's wants only creationism taught in schools, doesn't think teens need sex education (well, just look what abstinence-based sex ed did for her daughter), she opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest (Sun-Times comment censor bots are making me edit words, grr), she smoked marijuana when it was legal in Alaska but illegal according to US federal laws (wow, that's very new Republican of her, don't you think?), wants polar bears off the list of endangered species while their habitat and the permafrost melt away, opposes protections for salmon (one of Alaska's major sport fish) from mines and mining contaminants, wants health care to be "market and business driven" (isn't that the problem?? Vioxx, Bextra, HRT, anyone?), thinks that her husband's employment at BP is NOT a conflict of interest in her governmental dealings with the oil industry because he's not in a management position, and opposes stem cell research.
(http://www.ontheissues.org/ -- who state that "Our mission is to provide non-partisan information for voters in the Presidential election, so that votes can be based on issues rather than on personalities and popularity." Yeah. Good luck with that. Nice site, tho'.)
But who cares about all that. Bottom line, this is what most guys will think after seeing her speech at the RNC (from http://www.realitywired.com/governor-sarah-palin-americas-hottest-candidate.html)
"Here at Reality Wired, we're concerned with more important matters, like is Governor Palin the hottest American candidate ever? I mean come one, you gotta give McCain points for adding eye candy to the ticket because the blogosphere is alive with discussion on just how hot this mother of five from Alaska is. . . .
Sure, that doesn't qualify her to run the country but when's the last time you looked at Hillary and went hmmmm... nice!! Yeah, exactly."
And all the undecided female voter spouses or girlfriends of those guys will look at Sarah Palin, and if they squint, they'll see themselves as they WOULD LIKE to be, working and mothering and thinking of all the great things they could achieve if they had the money and power and hotness to do it. And they'll want Palin to win. Just as all those Hillary supporters so wanted Hillary to win, and are so bitterly disappointed that they're not committing to Obama just yet.
It's sad that we have to choose lesser evils, but that's the two party trick bag we're in, here in the US. And no matter what either of them say about reform, both parties would really like to keep it this way. You can tell by the way each becomes more and more like the other.