Palinpalooza
The massive media magnetism miring Sarah Palin is simultaneously conjuring a carnival atmosphere for the rest of us; the launch of her memoir, Going Rogue, is indeed a journalistic three-ring circus, and even I initially jumped into the raucous revelry. In spite of this political and cultural quagmire, an interesting thing has happened. Sarah Palin might be mucking through the money-making offers and amassing a new level of wealth, but I have learned about my own biases and prejudices.
It started with a seemingly innocuous quip in an email to friends and a FB post reading, “With Palin going rogue and Spitzer talking ethics last week, maybe the two should team up. Top line, middle line and bottom line is Sarah Palin quit a job for which she sought and was elected. Please help me understand what “Joe Six Pack” does not understand. The only constituency that benefits is the media and the SLN crew. She is the media’s gift that keeps giving. Ugh!”
Among friends, my intention was mere sardonic wit. I did not intend to incite a political debate. My words sparked not only civic discussion but also meaningful dialogue on women in politics.
I believe, as do many, Palin was chosen because of gender and public appeal. Yet, certainly, there were more highly qualified women — Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman immediately come to mind.
As a few friends noted, I did articulate my reasons for not supporting Palin’s aspirations for public leadership. because, “She lacks intellectual curiosity, critical and careful thinking, analytical problem-solving and an understanding of the geo-political climate. She is also very impulsive. She quit an office to which she sought election without a willingness to explain to her state and the public of why she was stepping down. And one more pet peeve, she does not have a good command of her own native language.”
What I have come to learn is that I viewed Palin’s resume through the prism of gender. I compared her experiences and qualifications to that of other women, not necessarily to that of other candidates. By doing so, I have contributed to the continued construction of obstacles and barriers.
In the months before the 2008 Presidential Election, Judith Warner, NY Times columnist and best selling author, posted an opinion piece titled “The Mirrored Ceiling” in which she opined why Palin’s candidacy was viewed by many as condescension. But more insightful than the column were reader comments, specifically #363, posted Sept. 5, 2008 at 10:26 am posted by Bill. He wrote:
“Why can’t my wife be the VP candidate? She is the same age as Sarah Palin. She graduated from college, too, but she attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, not the University of Idaho. My wife has executive/leadership experience, 3 commands in the US Army, and in 1991 when Sarah Palin was a Hockey Mom in training, my wife was a Platoon Leader in the 101st Airborne, flying Chinook helicopters in combat, chasing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. She has a little foreign policy experience too. In 2000 she was deployed to Bosnia where she served in a Civil Affairs unit and was the liaison officer to the Turkish Battle Group and NordPol Battle Group. She was a member of the Women of Screbnica.
She also has a little experience in planning and coordinating operations. In 2004 she was the deputy G5 of the 1st Cavalry Division, and Operations Officer of the 425th Civil Affairs Battalion, in Operation Iraqi Freedom at the Bagdad Airport.
Did I mention that she is fluent in French and conversant in Serbo-Croatian.She is a parent of a daughter, 16, who carries over a 3.5 GPA while taking AP classes for more than 50% of her load. She won 2-varsity letter in Cross Country and 1 in Track in her first to years of high school.
My wife, since leaving the Active Army in 1996, has been a high school teacher. She is currently teaching advanced math in an IB program. She believes that creationism should be taught in Sunday School, if at all, but never in a public school, that women should have a right to choose what they do with their bodies, and what difference does it make to her if gays marry or not. Global warming may not be entirely man made, but what if it is and we do nothing? If I were to guess, an education at West Point puts a little more emphasis on “Critical Thinking” than a beauty contest in Alaska.
My wife doesn’t believe she is qualified to be Vice President of the United States, a heart beat away from the Presidency, based on a resume with much more gravitas that Sarah Palin, where does Sarah Palin get the ‘cojones’ to think she is qualified?”
In the 2008 presidential primaries when Senator Hillary Clinton and the 15 other democratic candidates ran against then Senator Barack Obama, his “freshness” was applauded. When the Democratic and Republican teams were determined, the comparison focused on Obama and Palin. Palin was regularly criticized for her “inexperience.” I was among those critics. Looking back I now ask, why was Obama compared to Palin at all? The Republican presidential candidate and Obama’s real competition was Senator John McCain (duly noted “she would be one-heartbeat away.”) Perhaps one explanation is that it is easier to attack a woman in a sexist media society. I heard few if any sexual innuendoes that perhaps some of the men running should not have the balls to be considered for elected office.
Like most others I know, I do not want to be compared to other women. I want to be compared against other people who aspire to the same job, same salary, same rewards and same intention. But we as women allow the all too frequent comparison to other women. Perhaps Bill’s missive should have been equally applied to the men running on each ticket. I am not a “good woman mechanic”; I am a good mechanic.
For the first time now women make up half of all workers and are increasingly becoming the primary breadwinners in more families. The economic and cultural landscape of the United States is shifting. Perhaps, the political landscape is shifting as well. We need more qualified candidates to step into the civic arena.
Am I just a bit envious? Without question. Sarah Palin has a mega book deal, and I don’t.
(My forthcoming book is Porcelain on Steel: Women of West Point’s Long Gray Line)
First of all, excellent and thoughtful piece, as usual.
Got me thinking off on a tangent, but will have to put it down on paper later …
Well done, Donna.
The cries of “If this, then why not that?” are common in all aspects of life. I know folks who weren’t admitted to USMA who seem to me in all ways to be better candidates than I was, and yet I got in and they didn’t. Of course, on the flip side, we all remember former classmates who seemed to have it all together until the day they quit or got kicked out…so maybe our judgments are more flawed than we’d care to admit.
I finished Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Outliers” recently, and one of the points he makes early in that book is that much of success has to do with good fortune, with opportunities presented by serendipity and quirks of fate. I wholly agree that those instances play a major role in where we end up in life (although both Malcolm and I acknowledge that you have to have the requisite gifts to exploit those opportunities when presented). For instance, if Ted Stevens hadn’t been standing in my living room in Barrow in 1982 having a conversation with my parents’ boss about academy appointments, I’d have gone to Georgetown, pure and simple. How different THAT would have been… And yet, had that conversation happened in someone else’s living room, someone who hadn’t led the academic and athletic and artistic and active school life I had, then it simply would have gone unexploited, dissolving into the ether.
Palin was in the right place at the right time to get the nod and national attention. With a little research, it probably wouldn’t be all that hard to find a forty-something black man with a law degree who is more experientially qualified than a former community organizer to be POTUS, but that’s a silly digression, as is the one from “Bill”. If his wife wanted to go into politics and put herself out there as a possible candidate, then she should do that. Palin wasn’t plucked from her kitchen to be a VP candidate; she was plucked from the Governor’s Office of a state with fewer people than most other states, but with unique problems and challenges not well understood outside of Juneau.
I will never argue that she is the most qualified or the best candidate, but I reject the pundits’ claims that she actually hurt the McCain ticket. She enlivened it; for every fence-sitter she drove off, she got two genuine conservatives off the couch and to the polls (or at least to the VP debates).
I am a bit put off by her resignation, but I agree with her that her celebrity had become a distraction. For me, the most visceral reaction I had to your post was your dismissal of other arguments with “Top line, middle line and bottom line” as if that were the only consideration. It just smacked of “the debate is over”…
I have not read and will not read “Going Rouge”, mostly because such things don’t interest me sufficiently; it’s all I can do to read “Wired” cover to cover each month. But I’ll not fault her for capitalizing on her newfound fame; I would.
Two things: One, I wrote “Going Rouge”, as in Moulon, or Tim Curry’s face in RHPS (http://style.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/rhps-rw1c2-franktattool.jpg)
…funny, funny stuff…
Two, and apropos of nothing, I don’t think you need the hyphens after the numbers (e.g., “one-heartbeat away”, “2-varsity letter”), but would be happy to be corrected if you have a reference for me.
Cheers!
@ Ken Thanks for reading and commenting. Also appreciate the “critical eye”. Just demonstrates the importance of having others read your writing before posting.
It’s a (former) teacher thing. I can’t seem to put down the red pen (although there are few things I detest as much as making a correction and being wrong, hence the hedge).
I look forward to seeing your book…
Donna – I read your article with interest yesterday. I sense about three different major themes, all of which could be fleshed out in a good chapter or so. I can fully buy into your bottom line and personal desire to judge others and have yourself judged as an individual. Ironically, this is what I see as the core disconnect between the liberal and conservative perspectives. You should be judged as an individual, not a female-individual. There are rare times in politics or leadership in general that someone should be looked at as a Mexican-individual, African-individual, White-individual, Christian-individual, Male-individual, yet in liberal politics the focus will quite often rest on the pre-hyphen and not the post-hyphen. A post-hyphen focus requires a much more objective look at a person’s qualifications for a specific job instead of the subjective, emotional elements inherent in the pre-hyphen.
And to Ken’s point, when individual has the opportunity to take advantage of serendipitous circumstances; rock on.
Very well written and thought provoking, Donna. I am sure your grades in writing classes were higher than mine. I read the article a few days ago and it took until today for a thought to cross my mind. One reality of the political side of elected officials is that personality matters (as much or more than experience or qualifications). Recognition, charisma, magnetism, appeal and other attributes (although hard to quantify) weigh heavily on many Americans as they decide who they like, support, and elect. It worked well for Reagan. It hindered Bob Dole and Al Gore. McCain got a lift from Palin – with a significant bump when she was on the stump at the Republican National Convention.
On another subject, I greatly appreciate your efforts to support our class across a broad spectrum of activities.
@Rush Thanks for the acknowledgement on both fronts. Fortunately my prose has improved since Plebe English. Personality does matter more than experience or qualifications. Unfortunately far too many voters cannot see nor do they look behind the celebrity. Best.
If you want to read more about Donna’s book got to:
http://www.porcelainonsteel.com
The hyperlink at the end of her Palinpalooza blog just takes you to a blank Buglenotes page.
Donna, maybe you’ll get that mega-book deal yet. Good luck and keep up the good work.
The link to Donna’s site is fixed now. Thanks for the heads up, Dave and PS Everyone should give the site a look-see. Amazing content.
Well written analysis Donna. Sarah Palin may have become a media sacrificial anode, but she has certainly focused attention on the debate regarding WHAT makes a person qualified as a candidate. Your commentary is insightful, and poignant.
“Going Rouge”- THAT is funny stuff.
Thanks for the compliment Ted. Lets hope that debate rages prior to the 2012 election cycle. Yesterday Palin held a booking signing at Costco in Salt Lake. People camped out in sub zero temperatures. For a fleeting moment, I thought about making a cheap documentary interviewing and filming people waiting in line and asking why?