Hear, Hear!
How I wish Megan McArdle had the last word on our Palin obsession.
Mark of New Jersey
Mark is a Founding Editor of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, the predecessor of Ordinary Times.
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It’s really interesting to watch what is driving this whole thing: I’d say it’s one part media, one part misguided conservatives (not all of them) who really think she is the answer to their prayers and one part liberals who think that spotlighting Palin might push her to the 2012 nomination and a slam dunk for Obama.
I don’t see how she could possibly maintain any kind of momentum for that long. Sarah in the Senate would be so much more interesting anyway.Report
That sounds about right. I’d just add that there’s also one part liberals who overestimate Palin’s clout among the broader Right because she perfectly fits their stereotypes of the political Right-as-monolith.Report
I agree.
I do remember right after the election hearing that Rahm Emanuel had sent out a memo or something which basically said, “We need to really pound the notion that Rush and Beck are the voice of the Right into people’s heads.” I think it was probably a smart political tactic because it colors any opposition that agrees with Rush as sort of crazy. The problem is that now, 1 year later, a lot of liberals really do believe that Palin, Rush, Beck etc are the mold for most conservatives. What I can’t figure out is whether or not that will help them win votes, or get them hamstrung if we manage to field a nominee who shaters those stereotypes in 2012.Report
It is always a problem when you start believing your own propaganda. Plus it makes honest debate harder b/c they’ve started to believe that all people that oppose them are brainless right-wingers.Report
ahhh yeah the problem with palin and talk radio is…..liberals.Report
It is when they start to believe their own propaganda, which is sometimes easier than real thought, i.e. that some one might have a principled reason to disagree with them devoid of any connection to Rush or Beck.Report
ohh “they” are the are the ones who have the problem. people of any politcal persuasion can be closed minded, that doesn’t seem to have much to do with any problem, if any, that comes from palin and talk radio.Report
not the problem
part of why they are cultural phenomenons.
Given that Democratic leaders in the White House/Hill/punditocracy spent a solid two months in the spring painting Rush Limbaugh as leader of the opposition so as to marginalize both their opposition and the voices of elected Republican leaders, I have a hard time seeing the contribution of anti-Palin liberals as demonstrably false.Report
Am I misreading the dynamic but it strikes me as one where it’s an argument between people who hate people who hate people who hate Sarah Palin and people who hate people who hate people who hate people who hate Sarah Palin.
It seems to have little, if anything, to do with Sarah Palin at all.Report
Sounds about right to me, especially since, as you said awhile back, Palin ultimately is “just another.”Report
The folks over here seem pretty smart, so why is it that every time I click over here to see what you all have to say, I always seem to come across these threads where the commenters are all bemoaning the mischaracterization of conservatism?
Speaking for myself as a left-leaning centrist, I’ve got to believe that Palin, Rush, Beck etc are NOT “the mold for most conservatives”, because that would prove to be a bridge too far in regards to finding any common ground. But, I find it hard not to see weakness inherent in conservatism/Republicanism as it stands today when “most conservatives” appear unable to do anything about having their voices heard about the din of the minority of “misguided” conservatives.
I have no doubt that there are “principled reasons” to oppose liberalism. What are they? What are the alternative solutions to the problems the country faces? Why aren’t those ideas gaining purchase in the national conversation? How is it that the media, the liberals and the extremists on the right are finding it so easy to define who you are?Report
Hear, hear! indeed. I don’t like Palin because she’s uninformed on the issues, artificial, and refuses to take any responsibility for her own actions. The leader of Canada’s Green Party is better informed, more intelligent, and more qualified to run a country than Sarah Palin is.
But I can’t stand the media’s attitude towards her because it epitomizes everything that’s wrong with how the press treats woman candidates for high political office. Which is to frame them as either a bitch (Hillary Clinton) or a ditz (Sarah Palin and, in Canada, Belinda Stronach). And focus obsessively on their appearance and their relationships, to an extent they would never do with men.
If the Democratic candidate in 2008 had been a young, attractive woman that “celebrity” ad would have come out in January. But Obama’s male, so the fact that he’s hot gets to be tangential, not his defining characteristic.Report
Katherine –
No argument on the dreadful attitude of the media toward female candidates. Do you feel it is impossible, however, for that to be overcome when there are other defining characteristics to compete? I think Hillary has made considerable strides in undermining the bitch label. I don’t know that all women (I’m thinking Christine Todd Whitman, Kathleen Sebelius or Elizabeth Dole) have been completely saddled with some sexist caraciture. The treatment of Sarah Palin is exacerbated by how little she offers beyond her young attractiveness, as you so ably describe at the start of your post.Report
Hillary isn’t treated as a bitch now – but she isn’t running for President now. (An uncharitable part of me says the change is because she’s now subordinate to a man, rather than displaying ‘undue’ ambition by going for the Presidency. I don’t deny she was ambitious, but it seemed to affect people’s views of her a lot more than their views of, say, Romney.)
People in political office at lower levels seem to escape it, but I don’t expect to see any woman in a Presidential primary – or in Canada, running for major party leadership – to get avoid being stereotyped as a bitch, ditz, flake or the like. It’s possible that part of it is unfamiliarity with individual female candidates causing the media to use stereotypes – the one around Hillary was built long ago, but most people hadn’t heard of Palin and Stronach much before they burst onto the political scene. If that’s the case, someone with a already-developed midlevel political career might have more luck. But I’ll believe it when I see itReport
Scott, do you mean to endorse McArdle’s emphatic agreement that the Newsweek cover was a blatantly sexist outrage, or merely the general critique of Palinoia (which I find to be an extremely apt coinage)?Report
…make that “Mark, do you…”Report
But for the record, I tend not to agree with Megan McArdle on much.Report
That’s why I took that shortcut. How about you, Scott? The cover?Report
Oh, sorry, you said not agree much! Me either! But you do agree with her here, on Palin, do you not? Her take seems to be so close to what you tend to write here on Palin that I didn’t even look at the byline.Report
I personally would love to see a picture of Biden in running shorts on the cover of Newsweek. I think Talky Joe is way more sexy than we generalyy give him credit.Report
Maybe he’ll do the shoot.Report
One can dream.Report
I agree with every word Megan wrote in that piece.Report
I’m ambivalent about the claim of sexism there. (Unfairness I am more able to see.) Care to explain your reasoning?Report
I’m with Mark – my feelings on Palin aside – that cover was completely over the line in every way possible. McArdle’s response was spot-on.Report
Why?Report
I think Megan makes a pretty good case for me.Report