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Petty Attacks on Palin Could Backfire at the Ballot Box
By Colleen Carroll Campbell
Posted: Monday, September 8, 2008

ARTICLE
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Publication Date: September 4, 2008

It's time a woman ascends to the White House as a politician, not merely a politician's wife. So said supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton last year when she launched her campaign to become our first woman president.

After Clinton's history-making bid was eclipsed by Sen. Barack Obama's, it seemed that America's "highest, hardest glass ceiling," as Clinton called it, would remain intact.

Then came Sen. John McCain's announcement last week that he had tapped popular Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Suddenly, Girl Power was back. Or was it?

Judging from the torrent of ridicule unleashed on Palin since then -- centered mostly on her looks and her family -- it seems that our post-feminist, more-tolerant-than-thou media culture has lapsed into Neanderthal mode.

Respected commentators have wallowed in ruminations about Palin's tresses (Is that a hairpiece?), her beauty (No woman who looks like that can be taken seriously!), her hobbies (What kind of woman likes to hunt?) and her maternal fitness (Is she spending enough time with her kids? And how come she has so many?). Bizarre rumors born on the blogosphere -- about her children being named for TV-show witches and her son actually being her grandson -- have surfaced in mainstream media outlets. News of her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy prompted no fewer than three front-page stories in Tuesday's New York Times, with a chorus of scolds blaming Palin for her daughter's predicament.

At the end of a campaign cycle dominated by news about women voters and politicians, Americans might have assumed Palin's candidacy would be greeted with more seriousness.

Her background is compelling, after all: The daughter of a science teacher and a school secretary, Palin was a championship basketball player who parlayed her good looks into college scholarship money through beauty pageants. A mother of five who married her high-school sweetheart, Palin worked as a journalist and small-business owner and entered politics through the PTA. She rose quickly to become mayor of her hometown, a top ethics watchdog in her state and Alaska's youngest and first woman governor.

Known as a tax-cutting reformer with little patience for pork-barrel spending or back-room deals, Palin enjoys an approval rating above 80 percent in her state. Voters appreciate her down-home character as well as her accomplishments: Palin is an avid outdoorswoman, a conservationist who has challenged oil companies and the wife of a lifelong union member. A self-described pro-life feminist, she recently chose life for her youngest son despite his pre-natal Down's Syndrome diagnosis. Her oldest son deploys to Iraq next week, so she has a personal stake in bringing American troops back from Iraq swiftly and honorably.

Palin still must prove her policy chops to American voters. Holding her own in next month's vice-presidential debate could help her do that.

But for many feminist and Beltway elites, nothing Palin says or does will convince them that she belongs on a presidential ticket. They reserve a double dose of disdain for women like Palin, who dare to enter the political fray without checking their femininity or traditional values at the door.

A woman smart and tough enough to thrive despite their inevitable attacks in the coming months can handle the vice presidency. If Palin proves to be that woman, partial credit will belong to elites who tried to marginalize her but wound up reminding voters how much Palin resembles the women we admire most: our multi-tasking mothers and duty-driven daughters, loyal wives and smart sisters and feisty friends. Petty anti-Palin taunts may prompt a backlash among women who are fed up with a narrow band of feminist ideologues defining liberation for the rest of us.

Maybe Girl Power will survive this election after all.

-- Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and St. Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is www.colleen-campbell.com.