Sarah Palin Just Might Fly

At first blush the announcement by Sen. John McCain that he had chosen little known Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate should have people nervous on both sides of the aisle. If you’re a republican you have to wonder if her selection takes Obama’s lack of experience off the table as a campaign issue. After all this is a woman only recently (2006) elected governor of Alaska. Before that she was a hockey mom and mayor of the small Anchorage suburb of Wasilla. If you’re a democrat maybe Sarah Palin gives the Hillary crowd a place to go.
How much foreign policy knowledge, never mind experience, can this 44 year-old mother of five have? Her national security credentials make Barack Obama look like Winston Churchill, right? Maybe not Kemo Sabe. Sure the political and media elites will have a field day snickering at Sarah Palin’s life story. She’s a small town girl married to a commercial fisherman whose main claim to fame is winning the 2,000 mile Iron Dog snowmobile race three times. She’s also a NRA member who enjoys hunting and fishing with her family.
She’s also pro-life and in fact chose to give birth to a child she was told would have Down syndrome. They must be breaking out in hives at the Yale Club. And where did she go to college? Was it Harvard or Wellesley? No, it was the University of Idaho. What did she major in…potatoes? You get the picture. She’s the un-Hillary achiever.
Well not being Hillary may just be McCain’s point. There were a lot of women energized and inspired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and many were frustrated by what they felt was her shabby treatment by Obama and the media. Many of these same women are on record saying they intend to vote for McCain as a way of punishing Obama.
The conventional wisdom though has been these disaffected women would return to the democratic fold in November. Maybe. But here’s where Sarah Palin’s candidacy gets interesting. Not all women supporting Hillary Clinton are elitist lefties obsessing on Roe v. Wade. A lot of Hillary’s people are regular women like Sarah Palin. They didn’t go to Wellesley and Yale Law School. Nobody put them on the Board at Wal-Mart because their husband was governor, they just shop there. Sarah Palin didn’t trade off a famous name to get elected governor. She did it old school, she earned it.
Shortly after the announcement I heard a female CNBC anchor (and Wellesley alum) say she thought Palin was a good choice because she’s more of a woman than Hillary. This anchor admitted being a Hillary fan but thought Palin would be much less off putting to men and women alike because she “acts and dresses like a woman.” That sounds a touch misogynistic but people do tend to relate to people like themselves. Sarah Palin could well attract huge numbers of women normally overlooked by the feminist elites in the Democratic Party. If she does, John McCain will look like a genius.
For those of you thinking ahead to the VP debate in October, don’t be so sure Sen. Biden’s 35 years bloviating in the Senate will overwhelm Gov. Palin. The contrast between a young non-beltway female governor and the 65 year-old Senator might make people wonder which ticket stands for real change.