Palin Out But Not Down
America’s most famous female point guard has dribbled off the court…for now.
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But don’t count her out. Linda Lowen at About.com describes cheering crowds for Sarah Palin in Auburn NY last month when she visited the home of William Seward, whose purchase of Alaska was deemed folly at the time. Little could the public back during Andrew Johnson’s presidency have known our frozen new territory would one day spawn Palin.
Twitter was predictably awash in clever tweets, many snide and yes some sexist ones that I won’t dignify by repeating here:
INTENTIONING
Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women
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Misha1234 RT @cbn2: “I love my job and I love Alaska…but I’m doing what’s best for Alaska.” – Sarah Palin (Last part is *true*.)
RosieCaat Sarah Palin‘s political ambition combined with her intellect is like putting a jet engine on a golf cart; lots of horse power & no steering
garybc RT @LouYoungNY: For everyone who was tired of Michael Jackson dominating the news: Sarah Palin heard you.
Lowen has this right:
To say she received a hero’s welcome would be an understatement. She rode in a parade down streets jammed with gushing well-wishers. Local television showed smiling faces — young, old, male, female — all saying how attractive she was, how sweet, how much they admired her.
She has deeply devoted, dedicated supporters.
On that day, Palin enjoyed a kind of rock-star celebrity that was a far cry from her more pedestrian day-to-day dealings with legislators back home in a state where her approval ratings have dropped significantly since she stepped onto the national stage.
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza thinks she resigned to prepare to run for president in 2012. Others are sure she’s escaping some sort of scandal about to break. Some assume it’s pure petulance coupled with the looming storm clouds on Alaska’s financial horizon. Or, who knows, maybe she saw Russia about to take some sinister action while she was looking at it from her porch.
MY prediction? Palin has big money contracts for media gigs and her book, has pr handlers who have helped her orchestrate her rollout as “the voice of the Republican Party” and position her for a presidential run. Her speech was rambling, filled with platitudes, and nonsensical, but that has never bothered her dedicated supporters.
Palin may well have resigned because there was a scandal brewing and/or she has big problems in Alaska, as many have speculated. But this resignation is her way of staying in control, of asserting her power. Her gutsiness would be admirable if it were possible to see any reason other than self serving ones for this move.
Count her out for the moment, but not down.
GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”
As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.
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Did a Scandal Sink the U.S.S. Palin? – The Daily Beast – http://shar.es/cMQf
This fall on fox: Hannity &Palin? Or better yet;
The Sara & Sean Show. (top billing yaknow)
Kelley, that is hilarious! Definitely the woman should be on top 🙂
rhone, I’m betting there is something…we’ll see.
There has been quite a spirited conversation going on on my Facebook page about this post:
Julie LaBomascus at 12:30am July 4
I heard her on NPR and she sounded so paranoid. I was amused Palin was outraged at the critical attention her family got. Did she not expect this? Did she think being on the national stakes was all kittens and rainbows?
Bob Lamm at 11:48am July 4
Re the “cheering crowds” for Sarah Palin… doesn’t surprise me a bit. She is a polarizing figure, wildly admired by her little right-wing cult and abhorred by the vast majority of Americans. Don’t forget that as the presidential campaign got more bleak for the GOP, the rallies for McCain and Palin became very passionate and intense… but not so well-attended. And now that the GOP is out of power, their angry little band of malcontents is eager to show their bitterness.
Sacha Millstone at 11:54am July 4
I find it facsinting that there have been many male politicians much scarier than Palin but they have not been vilified the way she has. Personally I would like to see women represented in equal numbers across the political spectrum. I believe that the fact that she is female has given people permission to treat her the way that they have.
Julie LaBomascus at 12:07pm July 4
My brother mentioned this morning that Palin was picked mostly because the GOP thought this would get the “women’s vote” back. She may have the right choromosonal makeup to be female, but her attitude towards reproductive rights dommed her from the start.
Julie LaBomascus at 12:09pm July 4
Forgot to mention this: has everyone forgotten the way Hillary Cilnton was treated? McCain laughed and replied “good question” when someone asked “How do we beat the bitch?” An online anti-Hillary group called Citizens United, Not Timid (whatta they spell?) and Hillary Cilnton nutcrackers. An honest dialog on racism is one thing, but when will peopel stop winking at sexism?
Sacha Millstone at 12:11pm July 4
I could name 25 successful Republican male politicians far worse on reproductive rights – and they were not “doomed from the start”. Let’s start with George W. Bush and Bush Sr. Neither of whom would have appointed a pro-choice woman to any Supreme Court as Palin did. Her views were mightily distorted. Many male politicians have had very … Read Moreconservative personal views on reproductive rights – some have wanted to legislate those views and others have been more moderate on their public face as Palin in fact is. This is a reflection of our own deep seated attitudes towards women who go for executive positions in my view. I am not a Republican. I am pro-choice. But all along the political spectrum I believe we need female voices.
Sacha Millstone at 12:18pm July 4
I will not be at all surprsed by the way, to see Sarah Palin run for Senate in Alaska in 2010. Or to see her survive and thrive in any way she chooses. I hope she does. I may not agree with her on all the issues, but I want to see her voice in there right along side other Republicans because she has a feminist persepective that deserves and needs to be heard.
Sacha Millstone at 12:20pm July 4
Julie, “winking”? When will people , including so called progressive women, stop participating in sexism?
Gloria Feldt at 2:57pm July 4
Sacha, I usually agree with you and certainly concur that women are more subject to media sexism and gender-based public judgment than men. But when it comes to Palin, waving the red flag of sexism is what Emerson called foolish consistency. Palin, unlike Hillary Clinton, is so obviously a political and professional lightweight that she earns most … Read Moreof the approbation she receives. Hillary absorbed much sexist sting before Sarah entered the race and made Sarah’s life in the media potentially much easier. But Sarah threw that advantage away by failing all substantive tests of knowledge, ranting right-wing cliches incoherently as she did in her speech yesterday rather than cogently explaining her acts, and being erratic in her behavior.
Palin is smart and ruthless. She may well resurface as a senate or presidential candidate, and might even win, outdoing the men at their own game. I tip my hat to her gutsiness, but would never support her because she doesn’t support pro-woman polcies.
Sacha Millstone at 3:15pm July 4
I would not support Palin with my money or my vote, but I do support her right to be treated equally with other candidates not subject to the heightened amount of vitriol that she has been slammed with at every turn. I simply believe that there are many male politicians with her ideology and worse that were never subjected to the smear tactics and… Read More nastiness that Palin has been. I can’t think of an example of a male candidate that has in fact been treated so poorly, especially by progressives. Nor do I see her as either ruthless or anti-woman. She is not pro-choice, but she did appoint a pro-choice woman to the Alaska Supreme Court and she is not anti-contraception and so forth.
Sacha Millstone at 3:32pm July 4
And Gloria, both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have been called “ruthless”. Why? We don’t hear that term applied to male politicians – I have not heard it in connection with either John McCain or Barack Obama, I have not heard it even applied to George W, who had Carl Rove helping him each step of the way – and who is more ruthless than that? I don’t know about McCain’s tactics, but I can tell you that Obama’s were pretty darn ruthless.
Gloria Feldt at 6:03pm July 4
Actually Rove has often been called ruthless, and I’ve heard more than one Clinton supporter call Obama the same. Ann Richards tried hard to convince people that W. was ruthless. In general, the men you listed have learned the fine art of appearing charming while being ruthless. Maybe neither Clinton nor Palin is as skilled at that, or perhaps it is another example of the behavioral double bind women find themselves in–but I don’t think so.
BTW, these comments are so interesting, I’d like to pop them onto my blog so my blog readers can see them too if there is no objection.
Bob Lamm at 12:46am July 5
I believe that the nomination of Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s running mate provided an object lesson in the down side of nationalism–in this case, women’s nationalism. I hope that I will soon see a female president of the United States,
along with female majorities in both houses of Congress and at least six women sitting on the U.S. Supreme … Read MoreCourt instead of one or two. But I believe that 95% of politicians from ANY group are worthless, self-serving… I’ll stop there. I’m Jewish. I’d love to see a Jewish president… if it’s someone like the late and great Bella Abzug, not someone like Eliot Spitzer, Ed Koch, or Joe Lieberman. We live in a society that is still profoundly sexist… but that doesn’t mean that as president of the U.S. Sarah Palin would be good for women or for anyone else.
Sacha Millstone at 4:49pm July 5
Gloria, can you name an American female politician who you think has “learned the fine art of appearing charming while being ruthless”? I cannot. Ann Richards was certainly charming with her terrific sense of humor, but was she ruthless? When she ran up against someone who really WAS ruthless – Carl Rove/George W. – as you point out, she could … Read Morenot prevail. And that was a gubernatorial race – not a presidential one. The higher the office the harder this is for the female candidate. It is very harmful to a woman politician to call her “ruthless”. Merely ambitious women are seen as “ruthless ” . I believe neither Hillary or Palin is ruthless – just very ambitious and competitive – and this is seen as “ruthless” behavior.
Gloria Feldt at 6:37pm July 5
Bob, I’m not sure what you mean by nationalism, but I agree with your last sentence.
Sacha, there are a number women in politics who have learned that fine art, because it is a natural and valuable skill. Though not an elected official, I myself was often described as having an iron fist within a velvet glove in political dealings, and I considered it a compliment. Both Clinton and Palin have been subjected to gendered disparagement–Clinton for thick ankles and Palin for being “hot”, for example. Nothing Palin has endured has, in my view, come close to slams like the HIllary nutcracker however. Palin causes us cognitive dissonance because she is so obviously unqualified for high office, yet we don’t want her kicked around simply because she is a woman. Sorting out what criticism is justified and what is just sexism is hard. Ruth Marcus in the WaPo did a good job of it today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/04/AR2009070402254.html?hpid=opinionsbox1.
unbelievable for even the GOP to think she is their hotest ticket…how sad!!
Feminists are strange critters.
When a woman comes out of nowhere and challenges the system, as Sarah Palin has done, it will be her own sex that provides her severest critics.
Do feminists hate and envy all successful women?
Who can forget Gloria Feldt tag-teaming with Perez Hilton in attacking Gloria Prejean?
More Facebook commentary:
Sacha Millstone at 7:58pm July 5
I think you are missing my points. You are not running for high executive office. It is clear to me that this society has deep seated issues with women who do – especially when they receive national attention. We don’t feel comfortable with powerful, driven, competitive, ambitious women at that level. We feel we must tear them down. We don’t like … Read Morethem. This is a serious problem and I don’t know when or how we will get over it. The fact that both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were attacked unmercifully NOT just one the issues but attacked as charicatures – is evidence of this. I no longer believe that in my lifetime I will see a woman President of either party. But, I would like to see the number of women candidates across the political spectrum vastly increase and the standards for perfection that are applied to women and not to men – I’d like to see those become more realistic. I’d like the leadership of the feminist community to be more supportive of these notions.
Gloria Feldt at 8:24pm July 5
I’m not missing your points. I concur with your analysis of society’s “deep seated issues” and certainly want to see many more women run for office. That in itself will normalize the idea of women as leaders and the result will be that women and men will be judged more realistically. I’ve written much about my view that women missed the boat by not massing our political clout behind Clinton, but that when even right-wing Republicans know a woman on the ticket is electrifying, it’s progress.
Still we have to acknowledge that the normalizing of gender-balanced leadership will necessarily mean there will be both women and men everywhere on the political spectrum. Surely you aren’t saying no woman should express differences with another woman in politics? Because as women assume more political leadership roles, they’re going to have to take the same hard knocks as men and sometimes those knocks will be from women who disagree with their policies and politics. Where do you draw the line?
Gloria, I assume you meant something other than approbation, since by the context, you are implying the opposite. If you meant honest criticism on relevant issues, I might agree, but plenty of erroneous criticism has been (and still is) directed at Governor Palin, as well as sexist viciousness. It would depend on which forms of disapprobation that mostly caught your attention whether most of it was earned. Most of what caught my attention was, in my view, not earned, and the same applies to Hillary Clinton. However, if she had been the Democratic candidate, I am sure I would have had no more trouble compiling a case against a nation governed by her than I did for Barack Obama.
Aletha, would you edit all my posts? You have definitely earned my approbation for pointing out my misuse of the word. And you are correct that I meant the opposite.
The Women’s Media Center and several feminist bloggers are compiling the sexist media commentary about Palin. Hopefully this will help get the message to the media in a way that complaining about their sexism toward Hillary did not.
Gloria, I imagine others noticed it, but did not think it necessary to point out an obvious typo, especially since your typos are few and far between. I did, because I wanted to make a point about that matter of earned criticism specifically.
I doubt the US media will ever get the message, until a woman actually becomes President. Otherwise the media finds it too easy not to take seriously being called on sexist language. A woman President would be in a position to demand respect. A candidate can always try that, but it would not have the same effect.
Here’s a good media analysis by one of my favorite columnists Marie Cocco:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090706_a_trashing_as_old_as_suffrage/
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