Contrary to the assertions of Republican strategist John Feehery, if you strike Sarah Palin down, she does not become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. As word has spread of Palin's ignorance about foreign policy, her conduct in Alaska, and her dishonesty regarding her own qualifications, the initial enthusiasm about her has waned, most dramatically among white women. A new CBS/NYT poll shows a 21-point swing among white women in Obama's direction in just the last week. Palin's favorable rating among women has fallen 11 percent. It is folly to extrapolate too much from any one poll, but others confirm the trend.
According to the poll, the two things McCain voters like most about Palin are that she is "outspoken" and "a woman," neither of which are actually qualifications for the presidency. While arguing for months that the only reason Obama has come so far is because of his race, it turns out that Palin was picked mostly because of her gender. Poll respondents tend to agree: only 17 percent think Palin is qualified to be president. Conservatives love her anyway; 78 percent are enthusiastic about her candidacy. Turns out that tokenism is an exciting phenomenon for a party that is increasingly homogeneous.
Neither Obama nor Palin are qualified in the way past nominees have been. The country has spent a year evaluating Obama, and despite his relative inexperience, they've decided they like him, for the most part. This is probably because Obama didn't try to pad his resume: everything from community organizer to senator was out on the table. If it didn't look appealing, you weren't going to vote for him. He won liberal skeptics over through his conduct on the campaign trail, the way he managed his multimillion-dollar campaign organization, and by defeating Hillary Clinton. Essentially, he convinced people over by excelling beyond their expectations.
Palin, on the other hand, lied about her experience on everything from the Bridge to Nowhere to selling the governor's plane on eBay. For women voters, the growing realization that Palin was put on the ticket not because she was qualified, or because she would be a good vice president, but merely to boost McCain's electoral fortunes, might strike some as the exact kind of exploitation that feminism is supposed to end.
I can't actually hate on people who like Palin because she's a woman. Of course, that's not the only reason people like Palin -- it's because she's a woman and an outspoken conservative. Liberals like Obama not only because he's black, but because he's black and an outspoken liberal. The symbolic power of these combinations is more than the sum of the words used to describe them. Both Obama and Palin represent a vindication of their movement's worldview, and one hopes that conservatives might look at their reaction to Palin and come to a better understanding of what identity means. But they probably won't.
--A. Serwer
