Tennesseefree.com

I have watched with interest, over the last few days, at the liberal female blogger reaction to McCain’s choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. There are a lot of posts I could link to and break down, but this post by Newscoma, pretty much sums up the way most of them feel.

Newscoma titled her post “Girl Politics”, which is obviously similar to the term “identity politics”. Does the Palin choice fall into that category? Sure it does, but so did the Hillary candidacy and so does the Obama candidacy. So does just about all candidacies, for that matter. I mean, how many times were we reminded that John Kerry served in Vietnam, or that John McCain was a POW? Bill Clinton was not just a governor, but a southern governor. Joe Biden is being sold as one with working class roots and a native Pennsylvanian. Identity politics is just plain politics. Is it gimmicky? Sure. Does it appeal to something less than intellectual? No doubt about it. But it isn’t demagoguery, which does the same, but is much more sinister.

Newscoma, following the lead of many others, goes on in her post to discuss Palin’s lack of experience. But does a Barack Obama supporter really want to go there? Remember, the top of these tickets are still McCain and Obama. Also, is it really politically smart to make fun of the fact that she came from a small town? But back the subject of experience, I think the McCain campaign baited the Obama-ites into this line of attack. Sadly for them, they bit. In reality, Palin is the only one of the four candidates on the two major tickets, that has any executive experience whatsoever. She is the only one that has governed anything. She certainly has more experience than Barack Obama, who was a community organizer, then a state legislator, then a federal legislator for a short time. But I will go even further and say that she is also more experienced than either McCain or Biden. Serving twenty years in that cesspool known as the United States Senate does not compare to twenty days as a governor, as far as I’m concerned. Those 100 men and women are not executives. They are legislators. They don’t meet budgets or govern anything. The basically just spend money and run their mouths. Americans, for the most part, agree with me on this. This election is odd, in that for the first time since JFK (who barely won btw), we will elect a President with no executive experience. The Vice President will have some though.

Newscoma then goes on to suggest that it is only about her being a woman, and not even about her belief system. Right and wrong. Her gender does matter, but her belief system, her ideology is why she was chosen. McCain needed to choose a woman, but he did not need to choose somebody like Christie Whitman, a pro-abortion, liberal Republican. The Palin pick satisfies both the small government conservatives, and the social conservatives. She didn’t just come out of nowhere, you know. She has been talked about and sold for months by the right wing, the movement conservatives within the party.

Newscoma doesn’t exactly go there, but others have stated, very rightly, that McCain is not going to get many Hillary supporters with this pick. Well of course he isn’t going to get the true blue liberal woman voter, but he isn’t aiming for her anyway. This pick was about the undecided woman, the one that isn’t that interested in politics, but would have voted for Hillary if she had been nominated. If this choice results in only a two point swing of women voters, that will be huge. Remember, these elections are always close. A small swing in such a large voting bloc could make a huge difference in electors.

Finally, I am happy for the women who are excited about this choice. Having been shut out of the good ole boy network, and only allowed suffrage for 88 years, is it any wonder that a woman would be forced to take a nontraditional route to the White House? So I wish Governor Hottie Palin the best. You’ve come a long way baby.

On a side note, hats of to Egalia for remaining true to her misogyny watch, in spite of Palin’s Republicanism. She even defends Republican women.