Hello, sailor
Source: Drawing Power (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
Link: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/davidhorsey/archives/150535.asp
Title: "Sarah Palin's wink factor", by David Horsey
Date: October 4, 2008
Seattle P-I editorial cartoonist David Horsey notes that Republican vice-presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin did not, as many Democrats and liberals expected, crash and burn during the debate with Sen. Joe Biden.
It took only minutes before one of the Obama fans cast a worried glance around the table and whispered under her breath: "She's doing really well." The babbling ignorance Palin had displayed in her interview with Katie Couric had been coached out of her during the debate prep sessions in Sedona and she was now quick with a response to every question from Gwen Ifill and every challenge from Joe Biden.
Actually, she didn't respond to questions as much as she said what she had been coached to say.
(
Horsey)
Not that Seattle's Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist was sold on the Palin bandwagon, of course. The result is somewhat in line with what he had predicted (
see,
topic post, or Horsey's blog article, "
Prediction: Palin will do well";
see also "
Lowered Expectations", October 5, 2008).
But one strange result of the debate is that the poisonous talk of sexism has once again entered the discussion. This time it comes from ... well, it's hard to say
unexpected direction, but still ....
And Palin, the former television sports anchor, looked straight into the camera and projected confidence, good humor, a folksy style and, well, something that very few candidates for high office ever project: sex appeal.
Rich Lowry caught it. The National Review columnist has been lampooned mercilessly in the last few days for writing this:
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.
Yes, for some people, Palin's constant smile, her winks, her head bobs, her dropped "G's" at the end of words -- thinkin', doin', fightin' -- her shout out to elementary school kids back home in Alaska and her spurning of formality may show a disturbing lack of seriousness at a time of national peril. But those winks and that smile, combined with those high heels, tight skirts, nice legs and long hair, have clearly got Rich Lowry and a few million other American males thinking things they've never thought about a political candidate before. And it's not just conservatives.
(ibid)
Indeed, the spectre that haunted Hillary has returned to the campaign. Apparently, a female candidate cannot be successful without being sexy.
Five words:
Imagine John McCain being sexy.
Five more words:
Imagine Bill Clinton being sexy.
And five more:
Imagine Ronald Reagan being sexy.
Are you scarred for life? Deal with it.
Now, I admit it's a bit easier to imagine Barack Obama being sexy, but the point is that he doesn't have to. Indeed, Ronald Reagan, often-called "The Great Communicator", had about his presentation a certain sense of charm that was, ultimately, as the cliché has it,
folksy. But did anyone think he was being
sexy?
Sure, there were questions about Dan Quayle in '88. Would women vote for him just because he was "cute" or allegedly looked like Robert Redford? Indeed, what would we say to a woman whose rationale for voting Obama is, "Well, I may not agree with his policies, but I get wet just looking at him"?
She's hot? That's what one of Horsey's liberal friends said of Palin. I'll invoke some sexist rhetoric of my own in disagreement: No, I probably wouldn't kick her out of bed.
Then again, I wouldn't hop in the sack with her in the first place unless I was drunk enough to make a serious error in judgment. And as to whether
any of that has to do with her qualifications as vice-presidential candidate?
I respectfully disagree with Mr. Lowry. It doesn't matter, and it shouldn't matter. And if it's some sort of prerequisite that a female candidate has to be sexy in order to be successful, we've got a
long way to go.
Imagine President Bush in a sexy white dress, with stockings and garters, giving his "mission accomplished" speech aboard an aircraft carrier. And he opens with, "Well,
hello sailor."
Don't bother stabbing your eyes out. It won't erase the image in your mind.
____________________
Notes:
Horsey, David. "Prediction: Palin will do well". Drawing Power. October 1, 2008. http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/davidhorsey/archives/150269.asp
See Also:
Horsey, David. "Lowered Expectations". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. October 5, 2008. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?id=1836
Lowry, Rich. "Projecting through the Screen". The Corner. October 3, 2008. http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDYzMGFiNjQ0MWRjNmI0ZTlkYjgwZTExMjA3MWNiZTk=