Do Republicans really think that women can't tell the difference between Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin?
Do Republicans really, honestly think that when it comes to voting, women's thought processes go like this:
"McCain's picked a woman for a vice president, I'm a woman, I'll vote for McCain"
Do Republicans not realize how deeply insulting this pandering is? How profoundly disrespectful is this veneer of concern about women's issues?
I am a woman.
I am a 48-year-old woman.
I am a 48-year-old white woman.
I was not a supporter of Hillary Clinton. I've been for Obama from the beginning. Like Bill Clinton, I thought Obama was a "roll of the dice." Unlike Bill Clinton, I was willing to roll the dice, to bet on the candidate who, if he did win, would try harder, be more effective, and achieve more.
In making my choice between Obama and Hillary, my thought was that if there was any time to roll the dice -- to gamble on a more progressive agenda, to gamble on achieving grand goals, to gamble on the candidate with the largest potential payoff -- that time was now.
But I respect women, many of whom I know, who passionately supported Hillary Clinton. Why did they support Hillary Clinton?
For the same reasons I support Obama. They thought she was more electible than Obama. They thought that, once in office, her experience would allow her to be more effective at promoting a progressive agenda.
But these women didn't give their time, and their money, to the Clinton campaign because of a chromosomal commonality. They did it because they thought Clinton was the best candidate and in the primary campaign she proved herself to be tough and smart and because she is a democrat.
For Republicans to fly in this pretty little nitwit from Alaska and in one aggrandizing gesture elevate her to the height of being McCain's vice presidential partner and expect that this is going to trick these women who respected Hillary's toughness and her endurance and her intelligence and her grit is almost mindbogglingly insulting, patronizing, and wrongheaded in a way that reflects all of McCains deficits and illuminates Obama's strengths.
And here is the argument to use when equating Sarah Palin's lack of experience with Obama's: Obama won the democratic nomination on his own merits with grit and determination. Palin is just another beauty queen plucked out of the crowd by McCain to serve as a hood ornament.