(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

[UltraClassic]

McCain is no push over, he is as cold and calculating as can be. We can try to run this woman down. Sure we can, just like what was done to Hillary. We can do that if we are ready for defeat.

Better take this woman dead seriously and not trash her because she is a female with children. Many Hillary supporters will be watching her, but also watching us.

[shep1900]

Why not just treat all four members of the two tickets with respect? How hard is that?

[swift goat pet for truth]

Respect? No problem.
But we should be able to question their qualifications and judgement.

[colleen2]

"Better take this woman dead seriously and not trash her because she is a female with children."

Who is trashing her because she's "a female with children"?

[Chris]

"Even though I disagree with Palin's political views, I do hope our country is ready to take such a woman seriously, wholly. "

Huffsters are not prepared to take her seriously. Look at the comments on this site. Look at the headlines that Arriana puts up. I do not remember seeing HS yearbook and baby pcitures of Biden or Obama.

[Gidster]

Thats because you have not looked hard enough.
McCain has uses Obama's perceived inexperience as a talking point all along. Noting hers is not out of order.
She may be a great gal, a good mother and she's obviously a good republican, she already has an abuse of power scandal playing!
http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/478090.html

[Ides]

"Senator McCain has honored the 88th anniversary of women's suffrage by placing a woman on the ticket."

So says Reo. Marsha Blackburn. Welcome to Republican logic. Welcome to Alan Keyes tokenism. Palin is the mayor of Podunkville, AK, PERIOD, and this obsessive focus on her "character" is a specious replacement for her absolutely empty resume.

But go ahead, people, feel free to defend her sensibilities as fiercely as you defended Hillary's "35 years of experience (including her corporate career and role as first-lady and, you know, law school and college)."

This political campaign just got a whole lot tighter and a whole lot dumber.

[peaceplez]

Take someone serious not by the color of their skin or gender but what they seriously have to offer.

[slaxx]

exactly. and i've already heard the motherhood argument on other blogs. and what does this argument say about fathers? obama has two young daughters; that's what spouses are for. besides, this woman is already a governor which is more work than VP.

[brocko]

I am a 28 yr. old liberal democrat and Hillary supporter. I am furious over the way the media and Obama campaign has treated Sen. Clinton. McCain's choice of VP has now made me want to vote Republican for the first time in my life.

[lobear00]

Don't call yourself something that your not. Mcsame's choice for VP is a "Joke in itself, If Sarah had any worth to her she would tell Mcsame and his people to not "Use her as if she were just a plain piece of meat. And that is the only reason they want her so as to counter the masses that "Obama is generating. "Get a life".

[NatteringNabobs]

If you're liberal what's swaying you? Its the gender? Wow, that's sexism plain and simply. The reversal of reproductive choice may give you great comfort as she attends funerals around the world.

She was the mayor of Northern Exposure for gods sake.

[avalanch112]

ur an idoit. have fun with dissolved rights.

[blog4um]

Answer: Palin - Hillary a whiner.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/40211?bcpid=1691028268&bctid=1760440838

[patriotparty1]

I am soooo tired of you loons thinking that everyone who is a democrat thinks like you!
I dont know who you people are who took over my democratic party anyway. The party of
being proud and being American, and taking care of yourself, and turning down handouts, and working hard, and living clean. You people call yourself democrats, no I am a democrat, you are a left wing loon who has hijacked my party!
Well we are taking it back!! And if that means that we have to vote Republican to keep your candidate out, then we will.
Palin is a babies, guns, and God candidate. No baby killing, no sick sex, no anti soldier crap. If you want to see how big, and how mad the silent majority can get, just start picking on her. You will put McCain in office in a landslide like there has never been, and all of your loon buddies in office now will be voted out.
Go on, try us!

[sarobinson4320]

How can the Obama campaign and the media's treatment (which I'm conceding was sexist) cause you to want to vote for a right wing ticket if you are in fact a "liberal democrat". Who are you kidding. One has nothing to do with the other. Admit it, you're a republican troll.

[timm0]

Sorry, I'm not taking her seriously at all.

I don't take mccain seriously, either. They are going to continue to push for miserably, disastrously failed policies - regardless of the protruding or non-protruding state of their genitalia. And that makes for an easy decision on Nov. 4 for Obama-Biden.

So I guess, on second thought, I'm not sorry at all that I'm not taking her seriously.

[DMSmith]

One can and should be taken seriously. Assuming she has the credentials. This one DOES NOT!

Period. If Mr. McCain thinks being ready to serve is an issue - and HE has made it THE issue according to him - then this move is imbecilic at best.

Suicidal and self-destructive is more like it.

[GotRights]

When I heard the news and reviewed Palin's credentials, I couldn't help but think of Walter Mondale's disastrous choice of Geraldine Ferraro. It is obvious that both Ferraro and Palin were picked simply because of their gender and not based on bona fide qualifications. Twenty-four years ago, the majority of women voters saw right through Mondale's patronizing gimmick and punished him accordingly. I expect McCain will fare the same.

[bethinCary]

Sorry but as a women--yes I can agree with you that women can juggle the job of mom, wife, and job..but let's be realistic.­.we're talking about more than a full-time job as a VP pick-with lots of traveling.­.she also has a 4 month old with Downs'-which is also going to require more attention.­..
so unfuortunately tough choices need to be made by her---and not some attempt to think because she's been a soccer mom of 4 already---that this situation will be further "No big deal"...

shes' only been in office 1.5 years to a state with a population the size of Ft worth-and no foreign policy experience--so why the need to suddenly make the leap to Vice Prez?
What happened to all of those other female GOP candidates who have shown thier patience and abilities-and have a proven track record of family/career?
How about Kay B Hutchinson or Whitman?
So please stop the inference that people don't have the right to question these things--when it is decsions of the highest order that are concerned.­.
The GOP has shown that with Macs' Big Oil $$$ that he's just gotten--and now an Alaska 1.5 yr. Gov with no foreign policy experience---his only decisions he's planning on making are on where to drill in Alaska or where to put natural gas pipelines.­..

[jaynevada]

Nothing to fear, Palin is no Jane Swift.

As you yourself note, Swift had an approval rating in single digits.

Palin's approval ratings are 80%+

Enough said...

[Morra Aarons-Mele - Huffpost Blogger]

So you're saying that Palin could pull it off?? The world has changed that much? Have you seen some of the coverage?

I don't think she's qualified to be VP- but I don't want to see the fact she has a 5 month old bring her down. I want her failed policies and bad ideas to do it!

[rafael44]

she is as guilty as sin she is a s cynical and calculating as Mc Cain power is so tempting but we should ask in due time about her opinions about the economy the war th einternational situation I am sure that from now until october she will be trained to recite a perfect script

[lglglg]

Gee, some of the wigged-out right-wingers have had a field day saying "Barck HUSSEIN Obama"; what are they going to say about a woman who named her children Bristol, Piper, Track, Willow and Trig?

[imfedup]

LMAO. How true!

[HBeachbum]

At least she didn't name any of the "Apple".

[Alvarask]

Actually Palin's approval rating is 65% and in single digits in the Alaska legislature.