Cross-Cultural Blog

Palin's nomination feels like a patronising move. Owning a uterus is not a substitute for policy.

She treated the VP debate as though it was a reality tv show and rarely ever commented on the actual policies or direction of her party. If a male politician had winked and acted as coy for the cameras no-one would take him seriously. It is no different for her.

Yes, she is media savvy and oddly fascinating to watch... but this is not enough to warrant her presence in this campaign. She has become a real liability for McCain and I think that will be apparent come November 4.

On her daughter's pregnancy; it's a shame that it had to be dragged out into the public sphere. It clearly hasn't been too much of a problem though because Bristol has now exemplified party line by choosing have the baby and getting engaged. I think the fact that this girl's situation has inevitably become political property is more concerning than what she actually chose to do.

Celina by mentioning her gender you diminish all woman everywhere. She was not chosen because she was a woman ratehr because Hillary was not chosen. Those are 2 very different ideas. why do people hate sarah palin so much to make fun of her kids and why are there even sarah palin hate sites? How pathetic. Please stop the hate.

McCain’s choice of vice president was a mere solution to current situations than an effective future plan. I agree that by choosing a woman for vice president McCain intended to attract female voters who were disappointed after Hillary Clinton was forced out of the race, however it goes both ways as not all men agree to the notion of women leaders in the first place. Right now Sarah Palin is attracting crowds for McCain and many people actually like her and would probably vote for McCain because of her. That comes easy for she’s elegant maintains good looks and can easily pull on a show. Funny shows as well, like the fact that she has been punk’d on live radio after talking to who she believed was the president of France calling to say hello. Now what would that say about her? Nonetheless, her daughter’s pregnancy situation was in fact used against her, although pre marriage pregnancies are common in the US; in politics they seizes every chance to make a person look bad. To be honest, McCain’s decision was a very smart one for the elections, but what about the actual ruling did McCain make a smart decision about that? Still, a suggestion to John McCain is to talk to Sarah Palin before getting on stage and to not show they're distant as according to the LA times McCain is usually seen peeking into her notes when he stands next to her. What they didnt rehearse… now what would that say about their relationship?

I wasn’t surprised when I found out that McCain chose a female as his vice president. Sarah Palin will definitely serve a strategic purpose. Most importantly I agree that she will distract a great percentage of female voters who would have voted for Hillary Clinton.
The question is actually whether McCain chose the right female for the job or not. I strongly believe that Sarah Palin is definitely not qualified enough to become the next US vice president. She only spent 4 years on city council, 6 years as mayor of a small town and 2 years as governor of Alaska. Recently I listened to a Sarah Palin getting a prank call from two Canadian comedians. (http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=1nGlFxpgaw4). This proved to me that she really is inexperienced. The comedian claimed that the prime minister of Canada was “Stef Carse”, a famous Canadian singer. As the governor of a state that borders Canada, you'd think that Palin would know that the prime minister of Canada is actually Stephen Harper. Also the way she talked to the “Nicolas Sarkozy” was informal. It was astonishing to see that she fell for it and thought that the French prime minister was on the phone. There were many other incidents that made her look like an uneducated person. The prank call turned out not to be fake after I checked the news. I really recommend listening to it. It’s all over the blogosphere.
In my opinion there were many other more qualified and experienced women such as Senator Hutchison or Snowe that could have been chosen instead of Sarah Palin. I do agree that she’s a liability that the Republicans should be concerned about.
Ahmed Mostafa

Well I really liked all your arguments but, even if McCain chose Sarah Palin to attract those who voted for Hillary Clinton and where disappointed, he did not take into consideration the huge differences between the two. True, some females may have only voted for Hilary mainly because she is a female, but I guess the majority voted for her because of her history, Bill Clinton, and so these people most certainly won’t be interested in Sarah Palin by neither her appearance nor what she was saying.
As I said before the argument you guys made is wonderful, but I guess we need to focus more about Sarah Palin as a person rather than only a female. The idea of an African American president was very refused, but you find Obama the current president of the states at the moment. So I don’t think that the reason behind Palin’s failure was the idea that she is a female, but she was the wrong female. She was neither experienced nor intellectual enough for such passion. Also focusing on her personal life will cause bad publicity and all, but again it is not the point of why she failed. I guess that Americans were fed up and wanted change, so they accepted change and didn’t resist, so if Palin was the right woman I guess that the fact of having a good female vice president would’ve added a lot to McCain’s campaign and not the other way.

Hey Cairo! My name is Karen and I'm in Stanford's PWR 2: The Rhetoric of Online Activism. It is interesting that you bring up that Palin was McCain's way of competing with Obama in terms of "filling the gap in his campaign." McCain/Palin and their supporters in America argued for her nomination to possibly help bring in the female voters who supported Hilary. But how can they expect this to happen if Palin is calling the very person they support a "whiner." [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/29/palin-hillary-clintons-wh_n_122504.html] I only say this because people actually living in America are having trouble understanding this fact, and constantly refute this accusation. But I guess it's not that big of the deal, the election is over, I just thought that it was an interesting point.

I don't know much about Palin, her current views or past political history, so I can't respond much on that sense. But I think picking her, not necessarily that she was a woman, I agree that it was McCain's downfall. In attempting to "fill the gap" in his campaign, he actually made it bigger. A vice president is picked typically and should be, for the interest of the President, as someone that they know, trust, and believe they can collaborate with and have a successful political relationship with. McCain had only met Palin once before his nomination.

I think this fact speaks for itself in assessing McCain's decision. It wasn't that he picked a woman; he just picked the wrong woman.

Going off of Yomna Gamal, I agree that there are many compelling arguments here. What I have found to be a huge factor in the Palin debate, is the fact that it was believed that by picking a woman, the republican party would win the votes of the women voting for Hilary. I find this to be essentially flawed. Just because there is a woman nominee does not mean that all women will vote for her -i feel like this is a rather demeaning conclusion to come to about women. Especially when faced with Clinton and Palin as the two women of interest. They have entirely different beliefs as they are in different parties, so the vote is going to the person whom you agree with the most, not whose genitalia matches your own. If we look at the issue of abortion, one that clearly affects all women, it is easy to see where this belief that the women are exchangeable is illogical. Palin is extremely conservative, is pro-life, and believes in abstinence. Clinton is pro-choice and has more liberal (though not extremist) values. If you are a pro-choice woman, what could possibly compel you to vote for Palin? Or vice versa? So I find that in the respect of Palin being a "vote-stealer" for Clinton women, she is quite obviously the wrong choice. As for all of her other shortcomings, I find that I generally agree she lacks the experience and is not an outstanding choice in any way. It was not the fact that she was a woman, only that she was the wrong PERSON in many ways.

My name is Kaitlin and I am in the class the Rhetoric of Online Activism at Stanford. I would agree with Karen on some level that it was a bit flawed that the Republican party thought they could gain all of the Hillary supporters by choosing Sarah Palin as their VP nominee. However, when McCain first announced the nomination of Sarah Palin, many voters were attracted to voting for McCain because of Palin and many others became undecided. Choosing a young woman as his VP candidate was a very smart move, however as many of you have stated Palin was the wrong choice. As soon as she opened her mouth on national television it was apparent that she was not ready for the job. I also feel that if McCain had been running against someone other than Obama he would not have chosen a young woman for his VP candidate. He knew he was in trouble early on and needed something to stir up talk amongst voters. If he had chosen a different woman for the job, the election may have turned out differently, but Sarah Palin has made her mark in history as the flawed Republican Vice President nominee for the 2008 election.

Did McCain pick Palin simply to appeal to women? I don't think so. McCain picked Palin to appeal to a more important Republican bloc- the religious conservative base. Early in the campaign process, McCain came under heavy fire from the Republican "base" for not being "conservative enough" on issues like abortion and the role of religion in public life. While McCain did adhere to the party line on these issues, he had no history of social conservatism, and his old "maverick" status and association with pro=choice politicians like Joe Lieberman hurt him badly. By picking Palin (an incredibly socially conservative, highly religious person), he reassured the base that he was "on their side." Bristol Palin's pregnancy and Trig's mental disability actually HELPED define Sarah Palin as a pro=life crusader. And the leaders of the religious right quickly became Palin's biggest fans.

So did McCain pick Palin simply because she was a woman, or simply to appeal to Hillary fans? I don't think so. Her hard-core social conservatism and "family woman" image were definitely a huge part of the reason she was chosen.

Of course, McCain's strategy backfired- the "Palin bump" quickly disappeared once it became clear that Palin was dangerously uninformed, given to divisive and inflammatory rhetoric, and almost completely incapable of speaking in coherent sentences. But I can only say this with the benefit of hindsight- McCain's pick was, in some ways, strategically sound. Palin was an excellent candidate- she just wouldn't have been a halfway decent VP.

In spite that all people said that MCcain is the one who is going to win the presidency elections, Obama wins it. All people said that MCcain chooses his vice president to be a woman in order to gain the feminists voice , but at the end he fails to win. But, I think that MCcain did not chooses his vice president to be a women because of this only. But , now I could say that the rumors that appeared during Sarah Palin’s vice presidency negatively affects her. During the elections time , there are some people believe that Palin is a good person and is the one that people should trust and gave her president voice to , but other people because of what said about her and her family , start thinking against her because her “bad” reputation. Finally, I could say now that applying un honest ways in order to gain presidency will work exactly like the honest ones. All people that are against Palin and MCcain start taking advantage of what the news papers and the media saying about Palin and her Family , and they really win in turning the people against them concerning the election campaign.

In spite that all people said that MCcain is the one who is going to win the presidency elections, Obama wins it. All people said that MCcain chooses his vice president to be a woman in order to gain the feminists voice , but at the end he fails to win. But, I think that MCcain did not chooses his vice president to be a women because of this only. But , now I could say that the rumors that appeared during Sarah Palin’s vice presidency negatively affects her. During the elections time , there are some people believe that Palin is a good person and is the one that people should trust and gave her president voice to , but other people because of what said about her and her family , start thinking against her because her “bad” reputation. Finally, I could say now that applying un honest ways in order to gain presidency will work exactly like the honest ones. All people that are against Palin and MCcain start taking advantage of what the news papers and the media saying about Palin and her Family , and they really win in turning the people against them concerning the election campaign.

Obama owes a lot to Biden for his victory. Biden brought experience and things that Obama did not have and added ideas to the campaign. The choice of Biden was really good because he brought ideas to the voters that Palin did not bring.
This is important because in today's environment, Americans are more aware of more complicated issues than they were during Bush's elections. The economic crisis has brought these issues into common discussion, and Americans have more concerns than what they used to.
McCain's choice of Palin shows that he was continuing the political strategy used by Bush. Palin was not qualified, she was appealing to more simple ideas that Americans were not concerned with at this time. The fact that this strategy did not work for McCain shows that Americans were voting more based on the issues than personal politics such as the fact is Palin is a woman. Palin did not add to McCain more than she took away from him as a candidate. Her experience, performance and even her gender worked against McCain's campaign. To be honest, McCain's experience qualified him to be a better candidate than what he became after he chose Palin as his vice president.