(Jane) Swift-boating and Sarah Palin

Anyone who says women don't count in this country should talk to John McCain. Just looking at the McCain-Palin banner --Palin looking youthful but serious in her dark-rimmed glasses-- sends a clear message. I agree with many of the women bloggers at BlogHer.com who say McCain's pick of Palin is a piece of seduction.

Someone on the McCain campaign must've done some serious math: women swing voters who don't wedge on choice or environmental issues, plus NRA voters, plus drillers = choice of Sarah Palin.

Now, we know data shows women don't just vote for women candidates. But a Conservative blogger friend of mine said she did think McCain picked Palin to compete with "the breath of fresh air" of the Obama campaign. The blogger continued, "[Palin is] an outsider, she's young and she's got good conservative credibility, but without the expected resume. She's pro-life... she's pro gun rights, and she's an evangelical Christian, so she picks up the Christian right, who would have been disenfranchised by a lot of McCain's early people. She's also strong on energy policy for the Republicans -- she's from an oil state, but she's open to alternative energies, which fits well with McCain's beliefs."

All sound reasonable to me. Palin's optics and her fresh (if light) resume do stand in great contrast to the aging Senator. Palin has five children, including a baby (born, according to Wikipedia, this April).

But before we get ahead of ourselves patting McCain and the GOP on the back, I want to invite readers to remember Jane Swift. Swift, a Republican, served served as Acting Governor of Massachusetts from 2001 to 2003. Her approval rating at times was in the single digits. Swift was villifed for using taxpayer resources to fly home to visit her infant twins. Massachusetts does not have a Governor's mansion, and Swift lives in North Adams, Mass., about two hours away from Boston. The Boston Globe wrote of her,

"Swift advertised her first pregnancy during her campaign for lieutenant governor and was dogged by maternal crises in office -- using a State Police helicopter to avoid Thanksgiving traffic to get home to her daughter with pneumonia, tapping State House aides as baby sitters. Swift, seeming defiant and defensive, never recovered. She was pregnant with twins when she took over as acting governor, viewed as an inexperienced successor to a third-string Republican team."

Swift made the fatal mistake of being pregnant twice in public life--and has since been a cautionary tale to many women in politics. We're not used to female politicians who mother young children. Watching the Obama's on stage at the DNC, many voters I think were even taken aback to see a young family up there, casual and with the unpredictability only young children can create.

Palin hunts moose and is a definite appeal to the driller-vote, but she's also a mother of a young child with special needs. Even though I disagree with Palin's political views, I do hope our country is ready to take such a woman seriously, wholly. After the groundbreaking Democratic National Convention this week and both Obamas' sincere pledges to further the rights of working parents, I hope we can. The GOP, too, has included the provision of more family-friendly work in their platform.

Now McCain has made reality the ultimate litmus test of all high-achieving working women: can one be taken seriously as both a mother and potential leader of the free world? This is truly new ground.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate

Follow Morra Aarons-Mele on Twitter: www.twitter.com/morra_am

Comments

[XME]

Thank you! It was one of my first thoughts as well when I heard she had not just 5 children, but one that is only 4 or 5 months old with Down Syndrome. I'm a woman (38), and while I've never had children, I have to wonder where here priorities are. I know that as women we want to be able to do it all, but sometimes that just isn't realistic, and when you have a baby who has special needs, I question if she's one of the ones who thinks she can do it all, and it may come at the expense of her child. And of course, the though of something happening to McCain, and her being in charge of decisions such as starting wars, etc., scares me to death. I wasn't a fan of Hillary's, but had she won, I certainly would have voted for her, because I had no doubt she was capable of doing the job. We have less than 70 days until we vote, and we don't even know who she is, let alone if she could handld a VERY stressful job and taking care of multiple children, one with extra needs, while we're in the middle of multiple wars. Pretty scary to me.

[bison1]

Palin is really a PR candidate. She is selected to court the press. Palin holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Idaho where she also minored in politics. She briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations. In her hometown pageant, she won Miss Congeniality. She can charm the public. They are playing games with American lives. This was a political stunt not a sound decision.

[XME]

Sarah Palin = Gas Tax Holiday

[swift goat pet for truth]

Palin does not have experience with NATIONAL issues.

[Auspicious8]

Careful people
We elected G BUsh because we thought we could have a beer with him
We are in the dump...
Leave it to your losses 8 years from now if you suddenly realize you have elected the football player and the beauty queen rather than the class valedictorian...good luck I am already looking into moving to Canada while the rest of the world will be laughing about us and our irrationalities.

[army193]

"I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I'd had the ambition for a long time." (Worth Fighting For, by John McCain). It's always been about ambition not to reform government and his pick played right into is ambition it's not about what American needs it what John McCain needs to prove to his father it's as we are seeing Bush vs. Bush this is scary.

[Ides]

Open trap, insert intellectualists. Now if Palin loses, the academic debate will be on whether or not the country is willing to elect a woman to the Vice-Presidential position. This is the same dogged nonsense that chased Geraldine Ferraro around for years. The bottoming-out of the Mondale-Ferraro campaign had less to do with her gender than with her thin resume and shady, overbearing husband.

Now we are not even discussing whether a half-term governor who was once the mayor of a 5,000 person town has the credentials to even be a Vice-President. She's Dan Quayle, but no one's batting an eyelash in their palpitating eagerness to "entertain the idea" of a future female vice-president.

[parisblues]

Sarah Palin was Rush Limbaugh's VP choice. As such, she certainly deserves all the respect that Rush and his Dittohead followers accord to those of us who disagree with them.

[laocoon]

McCain is the one who seems to not be taking any thing seriously by this pick. He is 72 and has had potentially fatal illnesses. Is this a joke or did McCain simply not mean any of his prior "not ready to lead" ads. I approve this message John McCain. Did he listen to his own message? "Not ready to lead"

[Auspicious8]

This comment is pending approval and won't be displayed until it is approved.

Well he is following the lead of his twin brother G.W. Bush.
Bush met Putin and looked into his eyes and saw his souls and decided he could trust him...;
McCain met Sarah Palin once and found she was a hot smoking babe and decided he could entrust the lives of 300 Million people to her...
Republicans as Republicans do
People of America...get it right this time...Don't gamble anotehr 8 years


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[distant mirror]

Well nice try, but to take her seriously I think it would help if she at least understood what the job of VP entails.

[outsidethebeltway]

I am a 44 year old female with a Masters Degree and a successful career that spans 20 years. I think certainly a woman can effectively be president of these great United States of America and I look forward to that day. However, I am also a mother of 3 young children, and I have to tell you that as a MOTHER it is hard for me to understand Ms. Palin's decision. She has a five month old baby--with special needs-- and what looked to me like a daughter who is about four plus, a couple of teenagers thrown in for good measure. Campaigning and possibly having to run a country in the event a 72 year old president should expire suddenly is nothing short of all consuming. So is raising, nuturing, loving, and having time for five children. I believe women can "have it all", just perhaps not simultaneously. And I know that the dad is there, and there are nanny's and housekeepers involved. But kids spell love, T-I-M-E. Some feminists will be horrified by my comments, but as a MOTHER, I struggle to understand her decision to put her personal aspirations ahead of the undeniable needs of children, her children. Palin is young, she could have passed on this one. I would have respected her for it. Paint me an emotional mommy, but seriously this was my first reaction upon learning more about who she was.

[texrednface]

I have a prediction; IF McCain is elected, Gov. Palin will resign in less than a year into their adminstration, siting the reasons and feelings you have stated above. I believe the McCain people know this and have planned this. They are that calculating. There are too many other women qualified, but this one , they think has special appeal to the reactionary christianist right. Her decision to resign will be hailed by them as heroic and will set women back in their endeavors to make responsible choices in their careers and family lives.

[Auspicious8]

DITTO
She will resign because she is used to being productive as she said in an interview asking "what does a VP do anyway"....
McCain and his cronies will keep her away from any major decisions and she will not be respected as he does not respect women, including his wife, anyways...
She will get bored and angry and leave...leaving Lieberman and others to run the show
By the time the public realizes they have been dupped it will be too late and Lieberman will be the next VP....

[Poststep]

I agree. This seems such a cynical move. She is currently under investigation in her state. She may not make it to election day. Maybe the plan is to have her drop out very soon. In the meantime McCain gets a lot of press (Obama gets little), the evangelicals enthusiastically come home, a few more PUMAs vote McCain for making the "bold choice," and McCain ends up picking someone like Romney after all.

[swift goat pet for truth]

As a FATHER with ONE kid and a wife who works, it is all I can do to keep up.

I agree with you.

[bison1]

Michelle Obama talks about the difficulty of trying to balance family and campaigning, and she is not actually running for office. Besides Michelle’s children are older.

[slaxx]

i see where you're coming from, but why the double-standard? obama has two young daughters; many politicians have children. joe biden was a single father. besides, this woman is already governor, which requires more work than VP.

she has a husband and teenagers are pretty self-governing anyway and can take care of the younger ones. i'm one of four children and both of our parents worked full-time, but we still had time together and we turned out fine. also, have you not noticed how often bush is on vacation and golfing even though we're fighting two wars?

[khaleef49]

YOUR PARENT WAS NOT RUNNING FOR VICE PRESIDENT. IT NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF HER OLDER CHILDREN TO TAKE CARE OF A SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD. SHE WILL BE ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL SO SHE WILL NOT WITH HER CHILDREN. I AGREE WITH OUTSIDETHEBELTWAY.

[slc20]

I find it insulting that McCain assumes one woman is as good as the next.

Hillary Clinton, while not my candidate, at least earned her place on the national stage, and people supported her because of her experience and policy. I can't believe McCain thinks Hillary supporters are soooo dumb they'd vote for a woman who is so far right, she thinks abortion should be illegal in avery case- even rape- and thinks creationism should be taught in schools.

And she has zero foreign policy experience.
I don't care if your man or woman, no one should be that close to the presidency who hasn't a shred of foreign policy experience.

Scary.

[UnknownSoldier]

HRC had Zero Foreign Policy experience

[swift goat pet for truth]

Palin also has ZERO National Policy experience.

[bison1]

She said that she didn't know anything about the war!

[WrongWayMcSame]

Beauty Queens from Moose-Jaw deserve to be represented at the highest levels of government too.

[Auspicious8]

NO COMPARISON TO HILLARY CLINTON
THIS IS AN INSULT TO HILLARY AS MC CAIN AND SARAH ARE USING HER NAME TO PANDER TO THE DEMOCRATIC WOMEN

[Jackalheadedgod]

I am stunned by Clintonite females and their lockstep devotion to a distaff candidacy. Think Thatcher, or Meir - both a bain on history. Y chromosomes do not necessarily a leader make. Anyway, nobody I ever wanted has won, so what's the big deal?

Cheers,
Jack

[Bluedog12]

If you know your Massachusetts political history it was Mitt Romney’s press hatchet man Eric Fernstrom that led the Swift assassination. He used GOP operatives to undermine her position and it worked masterfully. Dump the broad and keep the cannoli’s was their motto. Once Swift was cleared out of the way Mitt rode into town as savior.

[blueroses70]

I have no problem taking a mom seriously. Working women manage motherhood and career all over the country every day -- they just need to get the help they need to do that. And that's what BARACK OBAMA will give them.

[MPeter]

Absolutely. But it boggles my mind that this former Miss Alaska, only 44 years old, mother of five, including allegedly, a kid with down syndrome, is only a heartbeat away from the Presidency of the US, with a Presidential candidate whose memory is faulty, suffers from PTSD, is 72 and has had cancerous tumors removed twice. If this is not a high risk gamble, tell me what is....

[blueroses70]

Ah, but I said I didn't have a problem taking a MOM seriously. The reasons I can't take Sarah Palin seriously have nothing to do with whether she's a mom or not. And there are plenty of reasons I can't take her seriously. Motherhood just doesn't happen to be one of them

[Poststep]

The whole thing is a stunt but who will have the guts to call it what it is. Obama hasn't so far and the press is terrified of being called sexist again.

[colleen2]

Does she pick up the Christian right just because she wants to force other women to carry to term children they cannot afford to feed or care for? I understand that this 'value' is extremely attractive to conservatives but I would be surprised if the Southern Baptist Convention or the majority of the sects on the religious right (who, after all, are quite clear about their notions of the proper roles for women) would be enthused about voting for a woman as VP. Likewise, I'm pretty certain that the LDS folks are going to be massively annoyed.
I keep remembering Harriet Miers....

[StuporMundi]

"Driller vote"? Assuming there even is a such thing and that it it statistically significant, don't you think the Republicans have had that wrapped up since 1980 or so?