Sarah Palin

by Camille N.

With her new book, Going Rogue: An American Life, supposedly hitting stands this November, Sarah Palin has once again popped into the political spotlight. Many have shifted their attention from pressing healthcare reform to last year’s election diva. On all spectrums of the political scene, bloggers and reporters alike have questioned Palin’s credibility as a presidential candidate for 2012 and the literary success of her upcoming book.

Many writers, including those from the Huffington Post, the New York Times and even the very far right Fox News, doubt Palin’s political standing. The Huffington Post argued that Palin threw the election to inflate her own fame: “She did whatever she could to seal [McCain’s] fate as a perennial presidential loser—while still advancing her own (political?) career as the maverick reformer who quit governing Alaska to join Facebook full-time.” The New York Times interviewed Steve Schmidt, Republican strategist of John McCain, and found little reason to trust Palin with the Republican nomination for 2012. It stated, “[Schmidt] thought it would be a disaster for Republicans to nominate her… Ms. Palin clearly has strong support among base voters…but she had done nothing to expand [it].” As a Palin critic, I have to know: why would anyone throw away their chance of power, especially when their running mate could die in the next four years?

Palin could have it all, if she wasn’t such an idiot. She has racists, supremeo conservative Christians, hicks, and even some, some, intellectual men and women eating out of the palm of her hand. In fact, Going Rogue is one of the top presales on the internet, beating out Robert Langdon’s (author of the Da Vinci Code) new book and following close behind liberal-hating Glenn Beck’s new political manifesto.

Is ‘Middle America’ reading more? Or are more women focusing on politics? I have personally met women who voted for the first time because they could find some sort of connection to this Alaskan hockey mom and have found countless “Women for Sarah Palin” websites, all trying to prove Palin’s worth to the American public (some are updated daily). But her influence goes both ways: 56% of registered women voters picked Biden as their next VP in 2008 and there is even a blog dedicated to stopping Sarah Palin from gaining federal power. I know that I became more politically aware when I found out we could have another super conservative in the executive branch for possibly eight more years.

After the Bush Administration we have all seen that the Vice President can have a big influence on the country, and Palin’s ideas of doing away with sex education and abortion rights scares me as a female living in a male power driven society. Their removals would strip all of us of knowledge needed in the adult world. If these two things are removed, we might find higher rates of female high-school dropouts, STDs, or sexual harassment. She is not only drowning women’s rights, but also women’s legitimate role in politics.

So does her popularity come from her “strict” moral code or her big mouth? Sure some women must feel like there is finally a person in our government who represents their social ideals, but I feel like all of her hoopla just creates a bigger circus atmosphere out of America. The Mayans predicted that some part of our world will end in 2012…maybe that will be the end of women’s rights with Palin at the forefront. I would like to be more optimistic about the future: lets hope that it brings an end to women being the but of the joke in DC.