CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Sept. 10, 2008 – 12:29 a.m.
Gender? No, It’s the Culture Wars, Stupid
By Madison Powers, CQ Staff
Picking Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate was a high-stakes gamble for John McCain , and so it’s worth speculating on what the McCain camp thought it had going for it.
Maybe McCain knows what women want. Or, to be more specific, maybe he knows what Hillary women want. Maybe Hillary women really care more about physiology than philosophy. Except for the fact that prominent Clinton loyalist Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz observed in an instant that it was insulting to think that women care more about the parts they share with a candidate than their policies.
What about those policy differences anyway? Are they dealbreakers? She is for creationism, against abortion even in cases of rape and incest, against the scientific consensus that human behavior is a major cause of climate change, and for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it. And by the way, she claims not have given much thought to the Iraq War issue. If all this describes Hillary voters, he must know more than Hillary, who denies that it really was all about her and not the issues she stood for.
Maybe McCain was betting on women to be overcome by their emotions and put anger over their interests. He probably thought he was on to something as he sensed the palpable anger at the political newcomer who swooped in and stole the prize away from the well-qualified woman, who had worked hard, paid her dues, only to come up short.
No doubt. Many women can relate to this complaint, inasmuch as they have seen that story play out at work. However, there is another story that they have seen and resented. They have seen the same competent, accomplished woman passed over in favor of the younger, less experienced woman whose elevation seems based less on personal qualification than some other objective of the larger enterprise. That’s hardly a winning strategy for recruiting disappointed women. It simply substitutes one distasteful version of the same old sexist system for another equally galling one.
Perhaps because of all of his years of experience McCain understands something more fundamental in the female psyche. After all, experience counted until he chose Palin and announced that it was all about change. Maybe it’s all about the romance. You have to admit, pretty gallant, eh? He meets her once, talks again later by telephone, and then pops the big question on the second meeting. Here is a man who goes with his heart — no failure to commit when he meets his soulmate.
I guess that I just never imagined that this is the character trait women really like in a man. What could be more breathtakingly bold than a man who does not hesitate to threaten bullies like Russia, even when the actual, sitting president is uncharacteristically deliberate and cautious. Maybe McCain thought that Hillary voters supported her because of all the years she made bold decisions with no thought to consequences. Good call on that one, John McCain . If ever someone in recent public life has been cautious, it has been Hillary.
Surely the Republicans are not so cynical to think so many women for Hillary are so easily swayed by so little substance. And surely by adopting the vigorous defense of Palin on feminist grounds they did not mean to imply that women simply hurl the charge of sexism promiscuously anytime a woman is criticized.
So maybe it never was so much about the courtship of the Hillary voters or for that matter of women of any sort. Maybe the Hillary voters and most women were of marginal significance in the calculus behind the pick. At best, he gets a few of the lowest of the so-called low information voters from that Hillary basket. Besides, picking a high-visibility social conservative advertises widely what the McCain campaign had been eager to leave unclear in the public mind. Polls have long indicated that the moderate swing voters, especially the suburban security moms, don’t really know McCain’s record on issues such as abortion and the availability of contraceptive services.
Never mind low-information voters; even some of his surrogates, including former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina, got his positions wrong. So one likely consequence of picking Palin — one they surely anticipated — will be that more moderate women will now know his various positions. “Win some, lose some” is about all he could have expected, and that can’t be the payout that could have made the high-stakes bet seem worth taking.
What really seems to be the new Republican strategy, including the Palin pick, is a re-igniting of the cultural wars. That fits well with the foundation already laid. The summer story line so far has been that, “we don’t really know this guy Obama.” Dutiful media anchors echo the negative ads as if they were the essence of smart money. The real smart money was the money spent by the Republicans to buy a tiny sliver of air-time in low-priced media markets and then send the ads out as bait for the cable news Big Fish who think themselves smarter than the fishermen.
Every time someone repeats the “we don’t yet know him” mantra it reinforces the false idea that we (the public) do know McCain well enough, and it gives all sorts of people a respectable way to voice their reservations about Obama without having to get into the inconvenient territory of race.
In fact, much of the Wednesday night massacre of Obama’s character at the GOP convention amounted to a menu of new and less transparent ways to belittle Obama as culturally outside the mainstream: urban Chicago, community organizer, Ivy League, angry preacher, ungrateful wife, and so on.
Gender? No, It’s the Culture Wars, Stupid
Who responded to the pitch? The immediate reaction of many observers (me included) was to assume that the point was to offer up Palin as someone women could identify with and who would validate their experiences. One poll shows a large gain among women, but many others see opportunity for a greater uptick among conservative men over the long haul.
Maybe she is there not to validate women’s experiences so much as to reassure men who feel threatened by the changes that have occurred in the quarter century since the cultural wars got under way in earnest. Maybe she is there to shore up the self-respect of a segment of men who know that they no longer have, and never will again have, the authoritative status as sole breadwinner in the family. It may have the effect of reaching out to men who know that women in positions of authority in all spheres of life, while reassuring them that women’s place in the grand scheme of things can remain unchanged. Time will tell about the polling numbers, but I doubt that whatever is happening is intended as a genuine celebration of women’s equality.
Madison Powers is Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University. His columns appear on Wednesdays in CQ Politics.
Comments
The Republicans cannot win this race on the issues, so they are doing what they do best: dredge up the divisive culture issues, play the fear card, and make up stuff as they go. Even Karl Rove is back in the Republican saddle again. Americans,we have to stand up and collectively say, Enough! We want real change. We need a leader with fresh ideas and the judgment to pick wise advisers.We need Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the White House.
Why is it that liberals define a wedge issue only as one where they're out of the mainstream?
What was Obama betting on when the Great Uniter failed to choose Hillary as his VP and spit in the face of 18 million people? Even now you just do not get it. The Dem Party is history. Arrogance killed it in the form of smart ass young men who shouted, if you old white women don't like it - leave ! We don't need you. Then they would add that we, who supported the freedom riders and affirmative action, like Bill Clinton and Hillary , were racist on top of the crimes of being old and uneducated and working class. Keep writing and spinning what ACTUALLY happened during the primary to try to guilt trip women into voting for a man who shows contempt for them. Keep refusing to acknowledge that the party bosses forced an inferior man on us to avoid acknowledging a superior woman. Keep refusing to acknowledge the sexism and corruption we all saw so clearly from Democrats in the primary process and at the convention. And from Obama at the convention. Keep blaming women for their refusal to accept abusive treatment. Women who voted for men all their life and are sick of the consequences. You are doing McCain's work or him. We old bitter uneducated small town women in serious numbers are mad as hell and refuse to take it anymore. As for your empty promises, well we have heard them before sweetie. "No self respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her" -Susan B Anthony, 1872.
Yes, indeed, the GOP is "Making the World Safe for Hypocrisy", and starring in this particular movie we note some of its favorite personalities (Billy O and Rush come to mind, swallowing their holier-than-thou pronouncements and previous judgments like the sword swallowers they are). The party's Palin pick was calculated to appeal to baser instincts, and dividing the votes of women was a goal they seem to be realizing. I am personally demoralized, very offended, and deeply saddened by the GOP's strategy, the positions this candidate holds, and the thought processes of good old boys in the back room (would that be Rove?) who think they know what women want. Shame on you, John McCain. I did expect better from you. Thanks for a thoughtful article.
Sarah Palin is a blemish on womankind. She has essentially allowed herself to be used by McCain as a pretty face and a feminine touch to his campaign. She was quite clearly not selected for her capabilities, experience, or policy record, so what else is left? She is being used simply as a trophy for McCain to parade around and say "I HAVE A WOMAN." Of course Conservative men are chomping at the bit to get to her. She is the shining example of the ideal redneck woman--hunter, beauty queen, breeder, religious nut, and hockey mom. In spite of all that, had she any sort of integrity, she would have flatly rejected McCain and told him "I'm not as stupid as you think." This woman has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton, and it will be downright insulting to Hillary if the people who voted for her decide to vote for Palin--not for her policies or her mind, but because they share the same genitalia. American voters need to stop treating the elections like the latest and greatest reality TV craze. This isn't about who you can relate to, who is the prettiest, or who can put on the best show--it's about who has the best policies. Full stop.
Maya needs to be a columnist! I couldn't have put it better myself. Hopefully the debates will help shed light on Sen. McCain's and Gov. Palin's stances on the issues and support for them will significantly decline.
The poor Dems are really trying to dredge up dirt on Sarah Palin. They are running scared. They have to resort to dirty tactics , as that is sometning they are really good at. They should investigete their boy Obam and that thing they have running for VP. Neither one of them has the qualifications or smarts that Sarah & McCain have .
Thanks Greenconsciousness, or should I say Karl Rove. That's exactly the negative message the Republicans want to get out, that because the Democrats chose Obama over Clinton they must be misogynists, so voting for McCain somehow makes sense. Ralph Nader said the same thing in 2000, and we got 8 years of Bush as a result. When the choice comes down to Democrat or Republican, which Democrat is a whole lot less important.
McCain wants to win. He chose Palin because she improves his chances in the fly over states. Flipping a few blue states to red could win the White House. Consider the 48 electoral votes represented by Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin which are now blue but could go red; Colorado, Nevada and Washington represent another 25 votes and Florida's 27 votes are totally up for grabs. Hard core Hillary supporters were not part of the calculation.
Maybe the question should be why did Obama pick Biden when the natural chioce would have been to pick Hillary. What better way to reconcile the base. Is it becuase he doesn't think the Country's ready for a woman at the helm, or was it because he wasn't ready for a woman?
Why is McCain, talking about energy change and he won't even vote to extend the solar, hybrid, wind credits? But he supports more monies for the fabulously super rich oil companies. Why isn't the national news jumping on this. Please folks write you news outlets about this, its really, really important for our future. McCain is just another Rowe mouthpiece, if he doesn't address this.
Greenconsciousness certainly makes the point that there are some upset women out there. The polls tell us that Obama's biggest problem is all the older women lost to the democrats. Hillary is a great democratic politician. Should Obama win the election, she should rightly become the most powerful Senator in congress. Biden was selected as vice-president to help Obama with foreign relations, something he is very good at. Hillary is in a key position to move the democratic agenda through congress. How is that not more important than being vice-president? Did Hillary really want to be vice-president? I don't know. Barak will make a great president, but the change he's talking about won't happen without someone in the Senate to lead the democratic charge. Who better than Hillary to do that?
The election of GW Bush to the White House was a gigantic disaster for America, the World, the Earth, and future generations of Americans. My daughter will live her entire life in an America burdened by debt. And her children will live on a planet where climate change wipes out most agriculture. But I guess it's victory for the conservative "Christians". The collapse of the modern economy and agriculture due to global warming should lead to more war, mass starvation, and anarchy. And according to the conservative "Christian" worldview this apocalypse should lead to the Rapture and Second Coming of Christ. Now I get it
POST A COMMENT
Oops! The following errors must be addressed: