Palin as a Girl Thing -- Days 1, 2 and 3

The choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as GOP vice-presidential nominee should be a potential goldmine for political psychologists, whether academics or political practitioners whose major concern is to determine how the selection of a person from a given demographic will move the polls among downwardly mobile red-haired transexuals in Dubuque. I don't know how quickly academic grant applications can be churned out and approved, but if I were a political psychologist I'd be working every connection I have to find out.

Gov. Palin's inexperience, and solidly social conservative views, in one sense compromise the purity of this Rorschach test. It would, for example, be fascinating to see how feminists' views of the nomination would add up if they did not know of Palin's pro-life position. But we must work with what we have. The Palin nomination's disparate effect on men and women will be worth noting. But the resolution of this question isn't the main attraction; it's just the undercard. We will see different reactions from young, middle-aged, and old women; between working-middle- and upper class women; and between homemakers, women who work because they feel to have to to make a living, and career women. Of special interest will be the reactions of career women who have intentionally limited the size of their families in order to better pursue professional interests; and of those uncounted millions of women in the United States who have had abortions (a group unreachable by polls).

I first sensed that reactions to the nomination were not going to fall within the range I had expected when I read the facial expressions, the body language -- and heard the words -- of professional newsreaders and commentators like Gloria Borger and Cameron Brown on CNN. The not very unspoken subtext of their remarks was that a nominee for the vice presidency should be someone older that Sarah Palin, someone who had sacrificed more than Sarah Palin had, someone who had had to fight harder against the male establishment than Sarah Palin had -- someone, well, more like them. There was a resentment there that seemed to go beyond the quite reasonable point that supporters of Hillary Clinton's agenda could not be expected to do a 180 to support anyone who happened to be a woman.

The best way of following immediate real-time reaction to the choice among conservatives was NROnline. In general the reaction of social conservatives as reported on blogs like NROnline was wildly enthusiastic. NRO Editor Kathryn Jean Lopez -- a fierce Mitt Romney partisan -- was quickly noting that "What's already irritating me though is the suggestion that women will run to her because she's a woman. Pro-life Palin is going to be a hard sell for liberal feminists, even if she has a uterus." That is the theme that we would repeated as often as one could want over the next few days. Shortly thereafter Kathleen Parker, NRO Contributor and author of the influential anti-feminist
Save the Males, was the first to introduce in that forum the issue of the candidate's style and attire: ". Ranging over to more superficial turf, I'd like to suggest a style makeover . . .soonest.". I was not surprised: although women in politics may complain about the attention paid to their makeup and dress, in my experience 90% of the interest, and criticism, on these subjects is from women. The daily comparisons of the colour of Hillary Clinton's pantsuits to the colour of the daily terrorist threat warning was all from women. Parker later posted that her e-mailers were for scratching the makeover; readers liked the "hot librarian" look. it later turned out that Gov. Palin had adopted the up-do and "schoolmarmish glasses" look specifically to ensure that she wasn't taken unseriously because of her gender.

Lisa Schiffren, one time speechwriter for Dan Quayle, was the first I noticed to take up the theme of social class -- one that was to take on more prominence as the first weekend went by:

I love that she is a former union member, married to a member of the Steelworkers Union. Here comes Ohio, and many of those midwest blue collar workers who aren't so comfortable with the idea of the first "community organizer" president. That she is an athlete and a hunter makes the story even better. I bet the Palins paid for their house themselves (and it wasn't any $1.6 million mansion)

The first data came from the Rasmussen Pollreleased Sunday morning. 31% of women said they were more likely to support the Republicans because of the Palin choice, and 41% said they would be less likely. The figures for men were 43% more likely and 34% less likely. Rasmussen noted that the figures were capable of explanation as a simple reflection of the usual gender gap between the parties.

We'll find out more after Gov. Palin gets her chance to speak on Wednesday night.