I remember finding out about Sarah Palin’s appointment as McCain’s VP just before noon last Friday, when someone gave a small cry of disbelief in our cube farm. And at that time, my reaction was “Sarah who?” After seeing her speech last night, I am still trying to figure her out, but there is no denying the immense impact she has had, and is going to have on this election. Simply put, this unbelievable appointment of a relative unknown, who just so happens to be female, and who just so happens to be unbelievably unlike any other vice presidential candidate appointed before has turned the game entirely upside down.
Having come from a very liberal background but having immersed myself in the complete opposite side of the political spectrum only recently, I took a mild interest in the Republican campaign but thought it to be terribly run (I guess I still am, and perhaps always will be, a rabid liberal at heart). But suffice to say that the Palin development has got me hooked, in stages that might well describe the seemingly collective reaction of confused apolitical twenty-somethings like me.
At first, I was incredulous. Who was this woman? And knowing a little more about her background, how on earth does McCain think she is qualified for the position? Let’s not kid ourselves, the man is 72 years old. Reagan was 73 when he ran for his second term, but who cares about how old you are when you’re wildly popular and responsible for the end of the Cold War? Following in Bush’s footsteps, McCain just doesn’t have a substantial victory (no matter how much he claims this war to be one) to his party’s credit. And at 72, he’s surely not getting any younger. And though the thought scares me, I can still imagine a President McCain. A President Palin, I cannot.
I watched her Friday afternoon introductory speech, in which she introduced her seaplane and exposed Alaska to the world, and although most people in the office were rabidly Republican, we all agreed she sounded shrill and un-vice-presidential. So to add to the incredulity, I was unimpressed. And no amount of poking around her Wikipedia page and trying to access the nonexistent www.sarahpalin.com (why on earth the campaign did not buy the domain rights to her name when they had her running for the second-highest position in this country still boggles me completely) could change that.
Then, the Bristol effect happened. I remember, too, how I found out. At a Labor Day barbecue, someone’s Blackberry went off and the news read like a bad blurb to a terrible reality TV show on the TV Guide. As if the news of Sarah Palin’s candidacy–a virtual surprise to many high-ranking Republicans–wasn’t gimmicky enough for this election round, her 17-year-old daughter just had to be pregnant.
No doubt that is beside the point. Palin shouldn’t be judged as a vice presidential candidate based on how her children have turned out or with the consideration of all this extraneous news on her family life. But although people shouldn’t judge her based on that, there is no denying that this is going to factor in somehow. Because try as I might, I just can’t dissociate the fact that Palin, who supports abstinence-only education–a method which has been proven ineffective (as if we didn’t all know that already)–and is intent on selling herself on a moral high ground, would have the nation’s conservatives defend her daughter’s actions when it is convenient for the GOP campaign. And somehow, I just can’t shake off the feeling that there is a terrible double-standard at play here, that makes it somehow alright (and fashionably chic even) to have privileged teenage moms become celebrities almost overnight, at the same time that other girls in that same situation in middle America would find themselves with a scarlet letter on their foreheads for the same actions.
But what incenses me most is the fact that Bristol Palin is getting married to this boy, and that all of a sudden, he has become a part of the Palin family at the Republican convention. It’s not that I don’t think they love each other–I’m sure they feel they do. It’s just terribly, terribly reminiscent of arranged marriages or what I’d like to call “marriages for saving face” that used to happen back in the dark ages. If Sarah Palin weren’t running for the second-highest position in this country, would her daughter still be getting married this early? I would love to think she would have a little more sense to wait rather than commit herself to a lifetime of building a family with a boy who never wanted kids in the first place.
The sad thing is I thought I could like Sarah Palin, all of this aside. I heard her talk last night, with extremely low expectations and found myself pleasantly surprised. Granted, her speech was written by Bush’s speechwriters. But she had a tenacity that I don’t think anyone can just fake. If I were conservative, and Republican, and not a woman, I would actually really like Sarah Palin. But I am terribly disappointed in this aspect of what would otherwise probably become the legend of Sarah Palin, some fifty years from now, when all of this has died down and we’ve seen America get its first black and female presidents.
Filed under: Uncategorized , election, palin, Politics, republican
