I'll let Dana describe the hot new political study about political hotness that hot political people are talking about. "After male college students were asked to write about Sarah Palin's physical attributes, they judged her as less professionally competent than those asked to simply write about Palin as a 'person.' If the subjects were swing voters or Republicans, thinking about Palin's appearance actually seemed to decrease their likelihood of voting for the GOP ticket." Sadly, I'd guess that this study would be true for political figures with a rather less sexualized public image than Palin. But as Dana points out, it's hard to know how seriously to take this study because Palin was so relentlessly sexualized amidst the campaign. The McCain team sold her as "a gun-toting Alaskan frontier sex symbol" and the conservative movement picked up the message. Remember this review of her debate performance from Rich Lowrey? I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.That's not to say I think Palin got a bum rap on policy matters. Those were some sorry interviews. But it makes sense that a study examining reactions to appearance would return particularly strong results for a national figures whose appearance was such an aggressive part of her persona.
