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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2010 / Always the Cheerleader, Never the Candidate?

Always the Cheerleader, Never the Candidate?

by Anne Laurie|  September 19, 201011:27 am| 51 Comments

This post is in: Election 2010, Vagina Outrage, Clap Louder!, Schadenfreude

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Dave Weigel at Slate reports from the Values Voters Summit straw poll, where Sarah Palin came in fifth (behind Mike Pence, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich):

… Politico’s Jonathan Martin asked [FCR president Tony Perkins] whether Palin’s weak showing in the presidential poll, and stronger showing in the VP poll, suggested that conservatives were more interested in Palin as a spokesperson than as a presidential candidate.
__
“I think she is a great spokesman,” said Perkins. “I mean, I think that she challenges the status quo. She says what a lot of people think. But, you know, a lot of people sometimes realize we shouldn’t say everything we think. Maybe it is that she is more of a cheerleader and one who rallies conservatives together as opposed to being their top choice for president.… “

In a loopy-even-by-her-elastic-standards piece, Maureen Dowd spends half her column bashing Christine O’Donnell (before deciding that O’Donnell’s temporary elevation is all the fault of That Man In the White House):

Christine O’Donnell is in a fantasy world. Literally. The pretty Palin Mini-Me identifies with the women of Middle Earth…
__
O’Donnell said she liked Tolkien’s outlook on gender: “On the one hand, there’s the attitude that’s normally on the conservative side — as a conservative woman, I feel I can say this — that stifles women. There’s almost the stereotypical attitude of, to be a true woman, you have to stay at home. And I’ve actually had people say to me, ‘Why do you choose a career over marriage?’ Honestly, I’ve had only a few significant relationships, and they’ve broken up with me. And one of the things I’ve been told is, ‘If you weren’t so strong, you’d be married by now.’ ”…
__
Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox, Karl Rove dismissed O’Donnell as an absurd choice with a sketchy background and dubious character. He alluded to facts in The Weekly Standard that chronicled her lawsuit against her former employer, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative nonprofit based in Delaware.
__
Although O’Donnell said in 1998 that wives should “graciously submit” to their husbands, her 2005 suit charged that she suffered “mental anguish” after being demoted and fired because the institute’s conservative philosophy deemed that women must be subordinate.
__
We the People in the Ruling Class Elites do think O’Donnell comes across as alarmingly loopy. But maybe she’s smart as a fox in doing a Single-White-Female, Fox anchor makeover to look more like her queen-maker, Sarah Palin…
__
She might have gone a broom too far, though, when she once told Bill Maher that she had “dabbled into witchcraft” and went on a date with a witch that included “a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.”…

And Vanity Fair reprints an email from “right-wing pastor and political activist” Lou Engle to Sarah Palin: “… I believe this is an Esther moment in your life. Esther hid her identity until Mordecai challenged her to risk everything for such a time as this. Your identity is “Sarah Barracuda”… I’ve been praying for five years for an Esther, with dreams of being a Mordecai to that Esther.” But the biblical Queen Esther was not a ruler in her own right; she was a young concubine, a beauty pageant winner, whose ‘triumph’ was orchestrated by her uncle Mordecai to successfuly enrich his own political career. Even Joan of Arc waited five hundred years for full acceptance from the Church hierarchy.

The self-proclaimed conservatives who have made Palin, and now O’Donnell, symbols of Heartland American Values(tm) are not, to phrase it politely, defenders of gender neutrality. Fundamentalists and authoritarians still loudly prefer their women to be decorative, and subservient. Whatever the mooted power of the PUMAs, it’s not going to be easy for the most hardcore “traditionalists” to accept a woman in a position of real authority.

It could be argued (probably has been) that the teabaggers’ willingness to promote female politicians (Palin, Angle, Bachman, O’Donnell) is inversely related to the possibility of a ‘Tea Party’ candidate actually achieving significant political power. Women are excellent figureheads, especially for a minority rump party fueled by nothing more significant than spite and nostalgia, but professionals don’t waste serious resources on figureheads. Especially since the last time they installed a former cheerleader as a sockpuppet, events went so badly awry.

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51Comments

  1. 1.

    WereBear

    September 19, 2010 at 11:36 am

    Well, they are Republicans. Determinedly grinding away at the usefulness of the product since 1964. And proud of it.

  2. 2.

    KCinDC

    September 19, 2010 at 11:37 am

    Can you imagine the howling if any Democrat had used the word “cheerleader” in a comment about Palin? But since it’s Tony Perkins there won’t be much outcry about sexism.

  3. 3.

    Punchy

    September 19, 2010 at 11:38 am

    Whoa whoa whoa. She’s not married? By Republican standards, doesn’t this automatically put her in the Clearly A Lesbian catagory (see: Graham, Lindsey)?

  4. 4.

    Derelict

    September 19, 2010 at 11:40 am

    I think you give too little credence to the major animus of modern conservatives: If it pisses off liberals, it MUST be a good thing.

    Thus, pushing empty-headed hypocrites who betray everything that they supposedly stand for while aggressively fleecing the people who put them forward is what the Teahadists will do. Not because the TeaTard candidates espouse policies or positions that lead to good things for America or even for Tea Party sympathizers. But because elevating such frauds pisses off liberals.

  5. 5.

    Face

    September 19, 2010 at 11:41 am

    and went on a date with a witch

    She went on a date with another female? Am I misreading this?

    Edit: Punchy beat me to it

  6. 6.

    gnomedad

    September 19, 2010 at 11:43 am

    Once one of these flakes “clicks” with the teabaggers, it barely seems to matter who they are or what their background is; the important thing is that the rubes can project their self-concept onto them.

  7. 7.

    Cat Lady

    September 19, 2010 at 11:46 am

    Pence, Huckabee, Romney, Gingrich, Palin. The Republican primaries are going to be fun! I hope that Romney is the perceived front runner, cuz if Palin trains her tweets on him, wheeeee!

  8. 8.

    SIA

    September 19, 2010 at 11:46 am

    Great post Anne Laurie. And I’m particularly enjoying the new tag line Vagina Outrage.

  9. 9.

    morzer

    September 19, 2010 at 11:49 am

    @Punchy:

    Can’t she just marry lil ol’ Lindsay? Wouldn’t that solve two GOP problems at once?

  10. 10.

    Uloborus

    September 19, 2010 at 11:53 am

    @gnomedad:
    That is *exactly* how I see it. That’s why they love Palin. Her enthusiastic, aggressive incoherent rambling means they both feel comfortable with someone else as ignorant and moved by selfish gut instinct as they are, while ensuring she never says anything they have to disagree with and breaks the spell.

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 19, 2010 at 11:56 am

    Maureen Dowd spends half her column bashing Christine O’Donnell (before deciding that O’Donnell’s temporary elevation is all the fault of That Man In the White House):

    Does she call him “Barry”? That’s so clever how she does that. It never gets old. It’s a really witty and insightful little hook she has to discuss politics. It’s even funnier than “Obambi”

  12. 12.

    Citizen_X

    September 19, 2010 at 12:00 pm

    Somewhat OT, Limbaugh declares that he alone decides who’s “electable.” In response to Rove casting doubt on O’Donnell, he says, “Who the hell are they, anyway, to anoint or disanoint somebody as electable or not electable? I’m in charge of that! … That’s always been my purview and nothing’s changed.”

  13. 13.

    Ash Can

    September 19, 2010 at 12:02 pm

    ‘Cuz these people are the real civil-rights champions feminists, don’tcha know, and we’re the racists sexists for calling bullshit on them.

  14. 14.

    Ash Can

    September 19, 2010 at 12:03 pm

    @Citizen_X: He finally admits it publicly, eh?

  15. 15.

    Tara the antisocial social worker

    September 19, 2010 at 12:11 pm

    It’s always bizarre to watch Republican attempts to appeal to anyone outside their natural constituency of straight white Evangelical men. After Obama got the nomination, Republicans couldn’t say enough about their great respect for Hillary Clinton. (That box of Hillary nutcrackers under the table? Um, someone else must have left it there.)

  16. 16.

    The Raven

    September 19, 2010 at 12:11 pm

    I wonder what they’ll do if some of these women are actually elected to the Senate, and are then beyond their control? With the passing of the Dixiecrats, I’d though we might see fewer crazies in the Senate, but the Koch brothers seem to be working on correcting that problem.

  17. 17.

    gnomedad

    September 19, 2010 at 12:14 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    Limbaugh declares that he alone decides who’s “electable.”

    Wow, he really said that! It’s obvious that he thinks that, but that’s amazingly blunt even for him.

  18. 18.

    Brachiator

    September 19, 2010 at 12:22 pm

    I think you give too little credence to the major animus of modern conservatives: If it pisses off liberals, it MUST be a good thing.

    I doubt that conservatives give a rat’s ass about what might piss liberals off. The GOP and their tea party goons are busy trying to win elections while liberals are stewing in their own juices.

  19. 19.

    Comrade Darkness

    September 19, 2010 at 12:26 pm

    with dreams of being a Mordecai to that Esther

    I hope she charges triple the hourly rate for this particular role playing.

    @Ash Can: Also worth pointing out that the real feminists they hated on the previous entire century are the only reason they can pull this bullshit at all.

  20. 20.

    Chris

    September 19, 2010 at 12:27 pm

    Whoa, Mike Pence came in first in that poll? Mike Pence is a professional dumbass.

  21. 21.

    gnomedad

    September 19, 2010 at 12:27 pm

    @Brachiator:

    I doubt that conservatives give a rat’s ass about what might piss liberals off. The GOP and their tea party goons are busy trying to win elections while liberals are stewing in their own juices.

    No conflict here. Pissing off liberals rallies the base.

  22. 22.

    myiq2xu

    September 19, 2010 at 12:28 pm

    Whatever the mooted power of the PUMAs, it’s not going to be easy for the most hardcore “traditionalists” to accept a woman in a position of real authority.

    Oh yeah, just like the progressives showed their feminist credentials back in 2008.

    BTW – regarding PUMAs your ignorance is tragic.

  23. 23.

    SIA

    September 19, 2010 at 12:40 pm

    @Chris: Who likes to pretend to be all thoughtful and stuff.

  24. 24.

    Comrade Darkness

    September 19, 2010 at 12:40 pm

    If you listen to a Palin speech (she only has one) all the way through (I know it’s tough…) but the inherent message is (and I paraphrase): “Not only is it great that you are ignorant, spiteful dumbfucks, but that makes you better than everyone else. In fact your attitudes and white bread traditions make you the only real thing going and everyone who disagrees is a threat to this country you guys so bravely represent.” Amazingly, [cough] her audience rarely heard this message previously, so it carries great power. Suddenly they aren’t losers, they are the previously unrecognized and downtrodden winners! Imagine what a revelation that must be for them and how “rational” it is for them to be so damn viciously defensive about any threat to this message’s truthiness.

    Really, pull up one of her speeches. She strokes and strokes and strokes the audience, it borders on porn of a sort. It seems to us that it’s only about her, but It’s only about her in that it relates to them and elevating her elevates them. It’s a neat trick and the essence of her popularity. That’s why her ridiculous preening and dumbshit statements only make them love her more.

    Being saddled with actual official duties and the eventual unpopular decisions that would have to be made would only decrease her power. Plus she’s lazy. She doesn’t really want to run, for real.

  25. 25.

    SIA

    September 19, 2010 at 12:42 pm

    @Comrade Darkness: You’re so right. Everything you said, including about her running. Though she might just stumble in to being the candidate after all.

  26. 26.

    burnspbesq

    September 19, 2010 at 12:46 pm

    Can we once and for all inter the meme that O’Donnell is attractive? Stoopid is not sexy.

  27. 27.

    Comrade Darkness

    September 19, 2010 at 12:56 pm

    Palin (diagnosis: narcissist)
    Angle (ignorant as a stump)
    Bachman (diagnosis: delusional psychotic)
    O’Donnell (diagnosis: narcissist)

    This brings up a question? Fiorina . . .she can’t rise any farther, can she?

  28. 28.

    Shalimar

    September 19, 2010 at 12:57 pm

    @Brachiator: Have you ever actually talked with some of them? The right-wingers I know really don’t seem to have any coherent philosophy other than “liberals are evil so everything they like must be bad.” Rush and Beck and Hannity and the rest whip up their hatred against their enemies every day. They don’t motivate them in favor of anything other than generalities.

  29. 29.

    kay

    September 19, 2010 at 12:58 pm

    Maureen Dowd should be embarrassed.

    They now have two candidates for the Senate who refuse to be interviewed by anyone other than FOX News, and there isn’t a thing media can do about it, because of the Palin Precedent.

    Andrew Sullivan is wrong about a lot, but he saw this coming.

    They created this monster. Obama was busy with other things.

  30. 30.

    Allan

    September 19, 2010 at 1:12 pm

    Tony Perkins was a cheerleader too.

    At least that was his excuse for all the time he spent in the locker room with the football team.

  31. 31.

    catclub

    September 19, 2010 at 1:13 pm

    Gnomedad @ 17
    “Wow, he really said that! It’s obvious that he thinks that, but that’s amazingly blunt even for him. ”

    I would bet he said it in an ironic tone of voice, in order to have
    some deniability ( he is an expert at that).

  32. 32.

    Allan

    September 19, 2010 at 1:19 pm

    @myiq2xu: PUMAs “don’t tell, they don’t swell, and they’re grateful as hell,” right?

    There’s a whole new crop of teenage beauty pageant winners you haven’t fantasized in print about raping, what’s been holding you back?

  33. 33.

    valdivia

    September 19, 2010 at 1:35 pm

    I loathe Dowd. Just fucking hate her. That is all.

  34. 34.

    licensed to kill time

    September 19, 2010 at 1:54 pm

    @Comrade Darkness:

    It’s like a Stuart Smalley affirmation.

    “I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, You People Are Just Like Me!”

  35. 35.

    The BigotBasher

    September 19, 2010 at 2:16 pm

    @myiq2xu:

    MYIQ=42, It is also so great to see how well PUMAs stand up against misogyny at sites like Hillbuzz, NoQuarter at the PAC or even that high PUMA priestess site of PUMA anti-sexism the New Agenda.

    It would never be hard to get what PUMA is and was about. It can be summed up in word. FAIL.

    Now go back to pretending that you are so much of a left wing radical that you actually think Mc-Palin would be better for the Country than Obama.

  36. 36.

    fraught

    September 19, 2010 at 2:19 pm

    I think Dowd sees more of herself in O’Donnell than she is willing to admit. The attractive single woman, who despises adultery and sees her own ambition mocked by those with better educations, even as she succeeds beyond her wildest imaginings, all the while internalizing the misogyny that accompanies a
    woman’s rise in a male-dominated field.
    She’s striking out at Obama without any understanding of her own rage.

  37. 37.

    James E. Powell

    September 19, 2010 at 2:21 pm

    I get the impression that Palin knows exactly what she is doing. She is not learned, she is not intellectual, but she is a very sharp operator. She can see that John McCain gave her the opportunity to be a multi-millionaire with a potential life-long career as a right-wing agitator. She saw the opportunity and she took it.

    And, for Palin, the best part is that the corporate press/media loves her. When one of your twitters can spark a week’s worth of cable news talk, you are truly a star. She doesn’t have to work at it. The corporate press/media come to her. And the more ignorant, the more bigoted, the more incoherent her statements, the more play they get. Consider, how much more play did her GZM twitter get because she said “refudiate” rather than “repudiate?”

  38. 38.

    That Other Mike

    September 19, 2010 at 2:42 pm

    @myiq2xu: Hey, it’s Meatprod! I thought you’d have collapsed into a blackhole of irrelevance and FAIL ages ago.

  39. 39.

    Olivia

    September 19, 2010 at 3:03 pm

    myiq is to “feminism” what Palin is to “coherence”.

    She merely sends a “tingle up his leg” each time she opens her mouth.

  40. 40.

    The BigotBasher

    September 19, 2010 at 3:13 pm

    @James E. Powell:

    Indeed and although merriam-webster are still denying the word, there are enough Palinites to get that word in to the dictionary eventually. Just google it to see.

  41. 41.

    Nellcote

    September 19, 2010 at 3:32 pm

    @James E. Powell:

    When one of your twitters can spark a week’s worth of cable news talk, you are truly a star. She doesn’t have to work at it. The corporate press/media come to her

    Remember the olden days, a couple of years ago, when being a political “Celebrity” was a negative thing?

    And Pense won the strawpoll! So they aren’t anti-imcumbent after all?

  42. 42.

    licensed to kill time

    September 19, 2010 at 3:45 pm

    @Nellcote:

    Remember the olden days, a couple of years ago, when being a political “Celebrity” was a negative thing?

    Funny, that.

    What hath McCain wrought?! He hath loosed the the Mama Gristly, let slip the Queen of Twits, and spawned a Celebrity Cheerleader.

    (I like the gristly spelling.)

  43. 43.

    4jkb4ia

    September 19, 2010 at 3:51 pm

    Not only did Dowd blow the code in the C.S. Lewis reference, I took one look at the demeaning Tolkien reference and groaned. After the success of the movies Tolkien should have been elevated to legitimate metaphor from “fantasy world” by now. Maureen Dowd is perfectly qualified to understand that Lewis and Tolkien knew each other and were part of the same literary group–that Lewis and Tolkien in their professional lives represented a certain kind of medievalism–and that’s not above the heads of the NYT readers at all.

  44. 44.

    4jkb4ia

    September 19, 2010 at 4:00 pm

    I am not entirely sure that Mordecai put Queen Esther where she was. Mordecai had no control over the beauty contest or the king’s favoring her. Part of the Purim story is that Mordecai was already a leader but Esther had to make a choice to be a leader (calling the fast) or to stay in the king’s palace and not take responsibility. And she had a formal royal position which Mordecai didn’t have, which with right-wingers shouldn’t be discounted. I saw on Andrew Sullivan once some group referring to Palin as a Deborah, which is a much more independent figure of course.

  45. 45.

    Mercy

    September 19, 2010 at 5:01 pm

    @38 That Other Mike:

    Where have you been? myiq is “busy” these days forever pushing the Palin theme when not extolling the likes of O’Donnell (and let’s not forget Carrie Prejean!), all former beauty queens who have been “savaged” by the unthinking, misogynist press.

    In his role as the resident male “feminist” at TC, he is praised, cuddled, and saluted for sticking his neck out on behalf of women everywhere for his “bold” stand in ferreting out those who would dare to criticize.

    He is “in love” and can be counted on for at least a weekly post, if not more, in defense of these birdbrains because they touch his “feminist soul”.

    Somebody has to do it and myiq has stepped to the plate casting reason aside to uphold the gentler sex from the Big Bad Press. Duties he takes seriously. He will send you to “Spammy” in a heartbeat is he senses one word of doubt or criticism surrounding his love notes.

    It must be exhausting for him spending hours online ferreting out blogs who mention “Palin” as he rushes forward to defend or explain her “impact” on the world.

  46. 46.

    M. Bouffant

    September 19, 2010 at 5:29 pm

    “On the one hand, there’s the attitude that’s normally on the conservative side — as a conservative woman, I feel I can say this — that stifles women.

    Should a non-consrvative woman say that, however … Well, you can imagine the howling.

  47. 47.

    apocalipstick

    September 19, 2010 at 5:33 pm

    Esther also became queen after apparently sleeping with the king. Not exactly the image Pastor Lou wants to encourage, is it?

  48. 48.

    monkeyboy

    September 19, 2010 at 5:36 pm

    Dowd actually does admit that that O’Donnell problem is that she is not part of the Washington Village in-group.

    We the People in the Ruling Class Elites do think O’Donnell comes across as alarmingly loopy. But maybe she’s smart as a fox in doing a Single-White-Female, Fox anchor makeover to look more like her queen-maker, Sarah Palin.

    As Glenn Greenwald points out, main-stream Republican attacks on teabaggers are not about their crazy ideas because main stream Republicans often hold those ideas.
    What they don’t like about the teabaggers is that they are not more politically sophisticated and better at hiding their aggenda and speaking in dog whistles.

    Just note how many bagger candidates cancel media appearances because they don’t have the skills of political doubletalk: Palin, Rand Paul, O’Donnell.

    that they haven

  49. 49.

    SoINeedAName

    September 19, 2010 at 8:57 pm

    @Punchy:

    To buttress that thought, she admits she didn’t date a warlock – but a witch:

    One of my first dates [obviously there were more] with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn’t know it. I mean, there’s little blood there and stuff like that. … We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.

  50. 50.

    Sarcastro

    September 20, 2010 at 10:57 am

    “Look at the significance that he gives to Eowyn, the Lady of Rohan,” O’Donnell said on C-Span in 2003. “She was a warrior spirit and, to me, that’s who I love. I mean, I aspire to be soft and gentle like Arwen, but realistically, I’m a fighter, like Eowyn.”

    Shouldn’t Galadriel be the go-to Tolkien character for female politicians to aspire to? I mean, yea, Eowyn’s a “warrior spirit” but she’s also a follower not a leader and, sure, Arwen is soft and gentle; most non-entities are.

    But Galadriel, that there’s overwhelming puissance and otherworldly serenity cram-packed into ethereal beauty. We’re talking about, quite possibly, the second most powerful entity on the face of Middle Earth behind Sauron himself. And you want to be her nobody of a grand-daughter? A fated helpmeet? A prize and little else? Pathetic.

  51. 51.

    That Other Mike

    September 20, 2010 at 12:20 pm

    @Mercy: I was just hoping he’d gone away, never to return.

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