Sarah Palin: A Sleight of Gender?
Politics and Power
Vanity Fair
by Dee Dee Myers
August 29, 2008
“Not again!” I thought to myself this morning, as news trickled out that John McCain was set to pick Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Not again, because too often women are promoted for the wrong reasons, and then blamed when things don’t go right.
Don’t get me wrong: what I know of Palin (which admittedly isn’t much), I kind of like. I don’t agree with her politics. But in her two years in Alaska’s state house, she’s shown herself to be a scrappy reformer, a no-nonsense manager, and a consistent conservative. She’s also a mother of five, which in my book is a sterling test of leadership.
Since there are only eight women among our nation’s fifty governor’s, and only three of them are Republicans, she was certainly someone to watch, a potential comer on the national stage. At 44, she’s young, a fresh face, and wildly popular in Alaska. And it was easy to see her appeal during today’s Ohio rally, where McCain introduced her as his running mate. She showed herself to be an utterly down-to-earth hockey mom with an independent (one might say maverick) streak. And her shout-outs to Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton for their path-breaking campaigns added a genuine note of grace.
But is she ready to be commander-in-chief?
(Continued here.)
Vanity Fair
by Dee Dee Myers
August 29, 2008
“Not again!” I thought to myself this morning, as news trickled out that John McCain was set to pick Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Not again, because too often women are promoted for the wrong reasons, and then blamed when things don’t go right.
Don’t get me wrong: what I know of Palin (which admittedly isn’t much), I kind of like. I don’t agree with her politics. But in her two years in Alaska’s state house, she’s shown herself to be a scrappy reformer, a no-nonsense manager, and a consistent conservative. She’s also a mother of five, which in my book is a sterling test of leadership.
Since there are only eight women among our nation’s fifty governor’s, and only three of them are Republicans, she was certainly someone to watch, a potential comer on the national stage. At 44, she’s young, a fresh face, and wildly popular in Alaska. And it was easy to see her appeal during today’s Ohio rally, where McCain introduced her as his running mate. She showed herself to be an utterly down-to-earth hockey mom with an independent (one might say maverick) streak. And her shout-outs to Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton for their path-breaking campaigns added a genuine note of grace.
But is she ready to be commander-in-chief?
(Continued here.)
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