OmegaMom

On Friday, in a move calculated to upstage Obama’s Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speech, John McCain announced his surprise selection of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his running mate.

A horde of angry feminists immediately shouted that John McCain was out of touch for selecting an inexperienced, lightweight, far-right woman as his running mate as an attempt to gain their votes.  What?!  They shouted.  Do you expect us to vote for you just because you have a woman as your running mate!?  How condescending!  How blatant!  How obvious!

Well.  I, for one, do not think McCain selected Palin because he wanted to appeal to hard-core Democrats who were romanced by Hillary.  Nor was he trying to get hard-core feminists.  What I think he was trying to do (aside from shaking up the race and energizing the GOP) was to appeal to two different constituencies:  The hard-core right-wing Republicans, who were only very grudgingly willing to vote for McCain, holding their noses as they did so, and the large group of undecided independent women who were voting for Hillary because she was a woman and they were excited at the prospect of a woman in the White House.  A fair number of those women were Republicans, whose (confusing to me) dedication to gender advancement was momentarily in ascendancy over their Republicanism, but who now have a choice that is much more to their taste.  Another fair number were women who would be willing to go either way, depending on which collection of interests they felt more compelled by, and they will find Palin appealing because of her youth, her vigor, her integrity, and her story.

In other words, by this choice, McCain alienates those who were (surprise!) already alienated by him and the Republican party and gains points with his core constituency and a large group of undecided voters.

So:  What about Sarah?

My email box had a few emails from friends and relatives asking me what we think of her.

She’s pro-life/anti-abortion: She walks the walk, doesn’t just talk the talk. The Palins knew early on that Trig was Down’s Syndrome, but the pregnancy was continued anyway.  There are those who get angered by this, because they’d say, “Don’t assume that everyone who learns they’re having a child with Down’s Syndrome will automatically abort!”.  That’s not my assumption.  My assumption is that there are a lot of folks who are “pro-life” who will claim that abortion is horrible under all circumstances, only to be faced with a similar circumstance and decide that, oh, well, it’s okay for me. 

Pro-Oil: Well, it’s Alaska. The entire state is pro-oil. 

Pro-Corporation (Anti-Environment):  She’s for opening up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.  She has pushed through a natural gas pipeline that was stalled for a long time.  She opposes putting polar bears on the endangered list, and thinks global climate change is a buncha hooey.

Family Values (Anti-Gay): Marriage should be between a man and a woman, period; abstinence-only sex-ed is the way to go, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Openly supported “teach the controversy” in science classes when it comes to science versus “intelligent design”.  Then waffled and said she meant when students bring it up.

Claimed to support “transparency” in government, but keeps hella lot of stuff under wraps when requested.  For instance, the governor’s office refused to release state scientists’ emails protesting the state’s official position about opposing putting polar bears on the “in danger” list because the emails were “preliminary” and “not relevant”.

After thinking about the whole “experience” thing, though at first I was worried about McCain dropping dead and her not having experience, it occurs to me that no-one has experience being the president of the United States, and it’s a learn-as-you-go job.  She seems to have done fairly well as governor of Alaska.

My conclusion:  I see a lot to admire in the woman, but her values are not my values.