In selecting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain is dusting off an old GOP tool: the estrogen guard. Slap a friendly, female face on a hard core-conservative political platform, and pray that the pundits will only take pot-shots and talk about gender. It worked for George W. Bush and it just may work for Palin.

Watching Palin address the RNC from here in St. Paul, Wednesday, I could have sworn I heard Katherine Harris cheer. Remember Harris, Florida's Secretary of State in 2001, and co-chair of her state's Bush/Cheney Committee? No one did more to snag the White House for her man -- and no one was laughed and scoffed at more heartily by the media. While the press poo-poo'ed her make-up ("she seems to have applied her makeup with a trowel" wrote the Washington Post) and introduced her to the public as caricature ("Cruella de Ville",) as Florida's top election-cop, Harris purged enough voter rolls, understaffed enough voting places and ill-equipping the voting system sufficiently to guarantee election day chaos. Parodied in the press, she rose to stardom in the GOP. Come Inauguration Day 2001, Florida Republicans threw an enormous bash for the woman they dubbed "our Joan of Arc." Soon after she was elected to Congress.

So it is with Palin. While her record stinks, so does the media coverage. In place of serious discussion of her policies on the environment, on human rights, on taxes, free speech and governance, we've had five days of "Veep Pregnant Teen Shock" and there's more than enough misogyny in the mix to give the McCain camp a stick to beat any truly investigative members of press-corps with.

Desperate for female votes (a group the Democrats have taken for granted for years,) John McCain clearly hopes his Palin pick will burnish his appeal among middle-of-the-road women. It's a long-shot. Palin believes abortion is a crime even in the case of rape and incest (that was even too draconian for the voters of South Dakota). She supports teaching creationism in schools as strongly as, as Governor, she opposed environmental protections for the Holy planet.

The hypocrisy is rank. Bristol, Palin's daughter "made the decision on her own to keep the baby," McCain's aides told the press. That's not a choice pregnant teens would have under the proposed administration of her mother and McCain. As for her claims to oppose corruption and pork – according to the Alaska press, she supported that costly bridge to "nowhere" for years, before finally canceling it as Governor. And experience? Again, according to Alaskan papers, during Palin's tenure as Mayor, most of the actual work of running small Wasilla was turned over to an administrator after Palin's precipitous firings gave rise to a recall campaign. Mayor Palin even tried to fire City Librarian after she demurred at a proposal to censor the library's collection.

Will the media see the substance or only the "Ms. Congeniality." We'll find out soon enough. But it's likely she'll get plenty of jabs in before then if her first performance on the national stage is anything to go by. Palin can dig at Obama more effectively than her running mate. (Does anyone not hear the racism in her allusion to John McCain's as the "sort of name you find on small town war memorials.") And if you're counting on her getting a grilling on the campaign trail, don't hold your breath. Reading from the Karen Hughes/Karl Rove campaign playbook, they McCain team will keep Palin from answering questions (as they did a young Texas Governor called Bush.) They're already de-legitimating the questioners, and there will simply be no access for anyone but "Fox News" pals and those who act like them. So will the public that's been fed a fact-free diet of John McCain the "maverick," see through Palin, the fresh-faced feminist? Don't bet on it.

Laura Flanders is host of RadioNation and GRITtv.org and author of BushWomen: Tales of a Cynical Species (2004, Verso.)

Comments (12)

1. Let her talk....in fact, insist on it.

   KEEP her talking.

   Despite what they think, Palin-talk doesn't play well with folks other than LVLIBERTY or HAPPY.

   The more she talks...and ISN'T attacked by Obama/Biden....

   the worse it'll get for McCain.

   Posted by Maskdelta at 09/04/2008 @ 12:15pm

2. Palin is a smirking cheerleader with a background that prepares her more for a neighborhood bake sale than a heartbeat from the POTUS.

   Hopefully the general population is more awake than the cheering room full of white-haired drones I saw last night.

   Posted by leftofcenter at 09/04/2008 @ 12:25pm

3. Posted by 2HAPPY at 09/04/2008 @ 12:23pm

   Really? You think most Americans support no abortion except for the life of the mother and teaching creationism and abstinence-only sex ed (and the obvious example of how well THAT worked)?

   Posted by Maskdelta at 09/04/2008 @ 12:28pm

4. Your political tea leaf reading skill is being degraded at an accelerated pace....must be the Kool-aid you started drinking to excess after your Messiah exiled Frank's Girl! Posted by 2HAPPY at 09/04/2008 @ 12:23pm

   Actually his guess is just as good as yours. Essentially you are both reading tea leaves and both of you have been as right as the other. Just because he isn't agreeing with you in his tea leaf reading doesn't make him wrong.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/04/2008 @ 1:05pm

5. "All of humanity is in peril of extinction if each one of us does not dare, now and henceforth, always to tell only the truth, and all the truth, and to do so promptly -- right now."

   FACTS - TRUTH '08

   Bucky Knew......

   Posted by frosty zoom at 09/04/2008 @ 1:36pm

6. IF you can honestly answer these questions, you just may gain a bit more credibility! (sure, it means your refereeing kinda sucked :~) Posted by 2HAPPY at 09/04/2008 @ 1:13pm

   Has his prospects improved? For now yes. He has gotten the evangies behind him. This is pre-debates though which is where his prospects will be truly marked out. So for now his chances are better. But again this is just you reading tea leaves. Your bets are no better than anyone else's.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/04/2008 @ 1:55pm

7. It's really very simple. Old John just forgot and overdosed on his Viagra. His first wife put it well: "John turned forty and wanted to be 25 again". And the camera kept flashing on the Stepford wives as she was giving her speech.

   Posted by lachatte at 09/04/2008 @ 1:56pm

8. Posted by 2HAPPY at 09/04/2008 @ 1:07pm

   Actually I offered THREE things, HAPP.

   But if you think Sarah Palin is "mainstream"....then you and I are in agreement on one thing-

   Keep her talking!

   Posted by Maskdelta at 09/04/2008 @ 2:09pm

9. Lady Sarah needs a nickname and I'm here to give it to her: The Luv Guv

   Posted by guanabana at 09/04/2008 @ 2:20pm

10. Posted by 2HAPPY at 09/04/2008 @ 2:36pm

    http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/cognitive-dissonance.html

    Read this commentary on her speech happy. I think it poses a lot of very good points about it in one of the most objective manners your will see.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/04/2008 @ 2:46pm

11. Posted by guanabana at 09/04/2008 @ 2:20pm

    I prefer "Miss Congeniality"....which not only fits perfectly with the OPPOSITE image she's going to convey over the next 8 weeks, when she becomes McCain's pit bull....

    it's also true, she WAS Miss Congeniality!

    Posted by Maskdelta at 09/04/2008 @ 2:52pm

12. I believe Sarah Palin is not invincible, but her gender is an effective shield against men. Most men are trained to treat women gallantly and with gentleness, and those men who fail to do so fall immediately under suspicion of sexism, whether they deserve it or not. This makes it extremely difficult for Barack Obama or Joe Biden to hit Palin back, blow for blow.

    This is why we need A FEW GOOD WOMEN to do the job of putting Palin in her place.

    One of them is Jane Smiley, whose eloquent rant, recently posted on "AlterNet," is a pleasurable read.

    Then there are the NATION's own Katha Politt, Katrina vanden Heuvel and Laura Flanders.

    My advice would be to give an interview to a tough Alaskan woman whom the NATION profiled recently: Diane Benson. I think that would be quite timely, regionally appropriate, and perhaps entertaining as well.

    It doesn't happen often to me, but it has happened several times since the nomination of Sarah Palin that I have wished Hillary Clinton might have been nominated Vice President after all - just so that she could fight back for the Democrats.

    And I have to say, I dearly miss the late, great Molly Ivins at times like this. WWMID?

    Posted by JakobFabian at 09/04/2008 @ 6:13pm