Just sayin'

[textualdeviance]

If Sarah Palin's 20 months as governor of Alaska qualifies her to be a VP candidate, and thus a heartbeat away from the presidency, then my tenure on the board of a community chorus qualifies me to head the Seattle Arts Commission.

Comments

[havdrake.livejournal.com]

Doesn't it just a little make you wonder that they might already expect McCain to lose and she is just kind of a "throw away"? Or just having a woman on the ticket is somehow a last ditch effort? I don't know. Just seems a little fishy to me.

[mrdorbin.livejournal.com]

I can't help but read it as a cynical attempt to grab disaffected Clinton voters, even though their policy positions have to be a million miles apart. I think they may seriously think Clinton was only popular because she was a woman.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much precisely it.

And there are some who did vote that way. They voted for Clinton not because of her experience or her plans and policies, but solely for chromosomal reasons.

There are, sadly, quite a few people out there so married to identity politics that they utterly ignore the content of a given person and vote just on the container. Which is bizarre, to me. Isn't the point of fighting for equality that we'd all like to be judged on our individual merits, and not lumped in with everyone with whom we share vital statistics?

That said, I do think the tactic is going to fail. There may be a handful of women who will vote for her just for the vagina factor, but I don't think there are enough of them out there to sway the election. Virtually all feminists--even the essentialists--are pro-choice, for instance, and her stance on that is going to turn them off, big time. And the women who aren't were already going to vote GOP anyway.

She'll solidify the women in the GOP base, and that's about it.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

It does seem like a Hail Mary pass. A month ago, she was saying that she didn't even know what the VP's job is. Two weeks ago, she said she hadn't been vetted.

I think this choice was made before Hillary's concession speech, with the idea that there was a lot more bitterness out there than there really is.

It's bizarre all the way around.