Moose and Quarrel
Crispin Sartwell has done a lot of gushing over a politician for an avowed anarchist today – not that I have room to talk any more – but I think he might be right on the electoral politics of the pick:
i think everybody underestimates how conservative american women are. certainly here in south-central pa, e.g. and i think that if they start hammering her as unready and lightweight etc, with her serviceman son and down’s syndrome baby, there’ll be an amazing backlash, especially when she spunkily battles back. a lot of women are going to understand exactly what this woman says, and deep down they don’t actually approve of abortion, and the pro-life stuff is not going to sink her.
Think about the GOP’s ambiguous trouble with evangelicals this year. Part of it is movement leaders doubting his bona fides. Is McCain really as batshit crazy as we require in the way we require it? they wonder. But more of it is economic anxiety among rural white families possibly trumping “the social issues” for what the Dems hope would be a healthy minority of white evangelicals.
But who would constitute that healthy minority of social conservatives willing to vote for a Democrat, and a black Democrat at that, because of economic anxiety? The wives.
Years ago, Yglesias crystalized the demographics of party affiliation for me when he wrote something along the lines of, The Republican Party is the party of middle-class to upper-class white men and their wives. Single women and minority women are more reliably Democratic. (He had the data, but it was three or four blogs ago, so I don’t have a link.)
It’s reasonable to conclude that any electoral problem McCain had with evangelical enthusiasm this cycle was gendered. Palin gives conservative Christian women someone to identify with. If it works, the GOP will have eeked out one more election cycle of preserving a set of economic policies (some defensible, some appalling) that they haven’t had the guts to argue for since the government shutdown debacle of 1995. When the Republican leadership lost that fight, they lost the confidence to argue for their menu of laissez-faire-to-corporate-welfare economics on its own terms. Since that time, it’s been impeachment and having beers with people and We’re all gonna die! and flag pins and Teh Gay, with rearguard actions to safeguard supply-side economics off in the shadows. Now we’re supposed to give the nuclear football to a guy who couldn’t be trusted to successfully guide the Rolling Thunder Rally into the Mall on Memorial Day weekend, all because, haven’t you heard, he was a POW forty years ago.
Meanwhile, said former POW appears not to have spoken to his candidate for Vice President much before, I will use the passive voice here, she got picked for the job. I do hope he likes her as they get to know each other. The circumstances of the pick seem strange, but maybe less so if, just to pick a for instance, the Republican Party were the auxiliary arm of a group of arms manufacturers and oil men who viewed the government as their personal militia and preferred easily managed mediocrities as front men. Or women.
Comment by Mojo —
August 29, 2008 @ 11:29 pm
I can’t agree with the last statement. From what I can tell, Palin’s greatest positive trait is that she hasn’t been “easily managed”. But I agree with your assessment of the impact of her nomination.
Comment by Fledermaus —
August 30, 2008 @ 2:32 am
Now that’s just crazy talk
Comment by Kathleen —
August 30, 2008 @ 3:05 am
“deep down American women don’t approve of abortion”? I guess it is American men that have kept our reproductive rights protected then? Strange.
Also, I don’t really get the “Obama will damage himself attacking Palin” bit. Why would Obama waste any time or effort attacking Palin?
Comment by Tony P. —
August 30, 2008 @ 3:16 am
“Governor, do you and your husband plan to have any more children?”
An unspeakably rude, politically incorrect question, I know. But I can imagine a sympathetic right-wing reporter asking it, perhaps even sooner than an antagonistic left-wing reporter. Or maybe one of the ladies on ‘The View’ will ask it.
I would be truly curious to know Governor Palin’s answer. I would be fascinated to hear the reaction from ‘the base’, either way she answers.
–TP
Comment by Matt Weiner —
August 30, 2008 @ 6:27 am
Crispin Sartwell has done a lot of gushing over a politician for an avowed anarchist today
And isn’t Palin just about the least anarchist politician on the major stage? Never mind her social conservatism, she’s a big proponent of Alaskan quasi-socialism, which I’m fine with but doesn’t seem very anarchist.
Knowledge isn’t merely justified true belief either, so nyah.
Comment by Nell —
August 30, 2008 @ 11:26 am
This pick, which is very reckless from a governing point of view for a 72-year-old man not in perfect health, will lose as many male votes as it may gain those of conservative women.
It’s a perfect illustration of McCain’s lack of judgment, shoot-from-the-hip decision-making, short-term thinking, willingness to pander, and the certainty of more of the same.
The woman has been in office for 20 months and has spent a significant amount of that time abusing her office to conduct a personal vendetta and then covering it up. Haven’t we had enough of that in the executive branch?
If something should happen to John McCain, she is simply not ready or qualified to be president. Period.
Comment by DrLeoStrauss —
August 30, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
The Boy King is equally unqualified as is a 20 month governor, so that’s a wash either way.
Women who resent a smooth talking younger male basically schmoozing his way to the top with the ‘old boy/media’ in the tank over a harder working ‘more qualified’ (in their eyes) woman also resent tokenism and being talked down to, especially by ’some old white haired dude.’ They also concede that the Boy King at least got elected by more delegates.
Our astoundingly unscientific focus group of only a couple of social conservative women democrats in the Philly area over the phone reveals trouble for McCain. Real resentment of a former beauty queen suddenly going from 0-60 without doing anything at all. Never had to work twice as hard as a guy only to get screwed over — one of the unvoiced secret handshakes.
Sure, reproductive rights issues might play a small role (no one votes for VPs anyway, as Benson proved so well) and so on. But on the whole demographic slicing based on XX/XY self identification, it may well turn out to be a significant miscalculation — literally McCain’s ‘blink’ and gut instinct misfiring.
And anyone who believes this choice will galvanize a tepid base still quietly believing McCain is the antichrist will be disappointed. Sure Dobson tosses in a fax. But beyond twitches and through the motion gestures still lies an inert base. Although a Dole 1996 operative with fond memories might think otherwise.
Comment by Anon —
August 30, 2008 @ 8:52 pm
Jim,
Since you indirectly mentioned the “marriage gap” here (the phenomenon Yglesias was noticing), here’s Nate Silver on the initial numbers on this front. I’m sur Gallup will have something on this soon, as they crunched some recent Pre-Palin numbers on the gap here.
Initial results: Married women seem ambivalent, married men seem very pleased.
Anon
Comment by joe —
August 31, 2008 @ 10:38 am
Sarah Palin serves to demonstrate to the public what inexperience really looks like. When you’re points of comparison are John McCain, Joe Biden, and even Hillary Clinton, Obama looks like a n00b. When you add Sarah Palin to that list, you have to redefine n00b to such an extent that Barack Obama no longer fits the term.
Comment by Idi Amin's Last Meal —
August 31, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
Twenty years in politics?
Why, twenty years ago, Sarah Heath (now, Palin) was giving Winnipeg Jets game scores!
If you want David Koechner’s character from Anchorman, mixed with a bit of Christina Applegate’s from same, in the Naval Observatory, vote Mc Cain. But remember: for toughness, it was Steve Carell’s weatherman who wielded a trident & killed a man.