Simon Tisdall
After a week when Sarah Palin was mercilessly mocked and pilloried in sections of the American media, a more pragmatic, less dismissive assessment of her impact on the presidential race is underway. For the Democrats and Barack Obama’s cheerleaders in the east coast newspapers, the initial auguries are not terribly encouraging. In short, what they see is not what middle America sees.
The insults thrown at John McCain’s Republican running mate may not be soon forgotten by white middle class people like her, in places such as southern Ohio, who could decide a tight race. “Cosmetics saleswoman in Macy’s”, “Veep in go-go boots”, “Shrill moose-hunting Mom” and many similar comments revealed a surprising degree of gender and class prejudice lurking under liberal carpets. And they reinforced the “elitist” charge levelled at the Obama camp.
The extraordinary depth of instant media intrusion into Palin’s personal life recalled the calumnies suffered by Bill Clinton before and after his 1992 election, which Democrats then angrily condemned. Likewise much of what has been alleged so far about Palin turns out to be untrue.”There were erroneous reports that Palin had supported [maverick rightwinger’s presidential bid (she supported Steve Forbes), that she had been a member of the Alaska Independence party (she hadn’t), and that she had ‘slashed’ funding for Alaska’s special needs children (she increased it),” wrote Stephen Hayes in the Weekly Standard.
Following a rumour that Palin’s last child, Trig, was actually her daughter’s, a major US newspaper went so far as to “demand the McCain campaign share medical records relating to Palin’s amniotic fluid,” Hayes reported. One BBC radio reporter was reduced to asking whether a parent of five children could fulfil a vice-president’s duties, a question that would hardly be asked of a man.
“For her first five days as McCain’s running mate, Palin took a shelling from the usual suspects – and some unlikely detractors – that would have disorientated the toughest veterans,” wrote columnist Kevin Rennie in the Hartford Courant. “Her critics finally found something they wanted to drill for. Sweet crude vitriol gushed.”
The fact that Palin not only survived this baptism of fire but came out punching, smiling joyously, is worrying for the Democrats. Her evident toughness, her ability to work a crowd, and her unusual line (among American politicians) in sarky, sardonic put-downs are skills likely to impress in the small towns of the battleground states where the McCain campaign plans to send her.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/08/uselections2008.sarahpalin