An excellent diary at the top of the rec list misses what I believe to be one part of Sarah Palin's "appeal", namely the combination of all her other qualities with what is often the 800 pound gorilla when regarding Sarah Palin, her gender.
This is fixated in America's decades long culture wars. While the Democratic party has made great strides and attempts to overcome the "culture wars", the conservative movement-- in a trend that seems to mirror its growing intellectual indifference and extremism-- seems more fixated on it than ever. The culture wars is the fictional idea that there are two Americas, one godless, socialistic, and unAmerica, and the other, "real" America, virulently conservative, quasi-theocratic, and reactionary.
The culture wars are a myth. In reality, America has been constantly changing, and there are not two Americas but thousands, if not millions of different Americas, coexisting. There is no "real" America, no "real" culture, only different Americas, all real.
But the myth soldiers on, and has often been centered around the role of women, because no culture is complete without women.
To believe that there is one "real" America, one "real" culture, you also believe that there is also one "real" type of woman, a type of woman who represents an ideal, the ideal of womanhood as defined by your culture.
And so we come to the notion that
"Sarah Palin is a REAL woman"
The gender angle leaves me, I admit, with a least a little mixed feelings. I am gratified that conservatives have finally accepted that a woman with young children can also have a political career and not be considered "selfish." The next time a conservative lobs that charge at a woman with a career and children, ask them if they supported Sarah Palin. I am gratified that in some contexts, they can at least pretend to care about sexism, and perhaps some of them are learning what it is like when a woman they like faces it.
But in the final analysis, the gender angle of the conservative Palin obsession reflects conservatism's still dysfunctional and incomplete relationship with the modern woman, one that reveals more than anything the profound insecurity and fear that is at the heart of modern conservatism.
These conservatives don't support Palin mainly because of her (potential) contributions as a professional to the dialogue and governance of the nation. If they did, there are far other, more qualified Republican women out there, who have been out there for years- In the Senate alone, these include Kay Bailey Hutchison, Lisa Murkowski, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Elizabeth Dole. There are half a dozen governors and a dozen or more House members. All more qualified than Palin. What about them?
These people are attracted to Palin because she represents to them the "real" woman, the only legitimate role model. She is a "real" woman because she is strongly anti- choice. She is a "real" woman because she hunts. She is a "real" woman because she wears a dress. She is a "real" woman because she is very conservative. She is a "real" woman because she has lots of kids and is still together with Todd. She is a "real" woman because she is attractive to men, ala Ann Coulter.
In short, she is less of a political leader than an extension of the culture war, and that culture war's determination to impose a fixed ideal of womanhood, as determined by conservative men, on American women.
So it does not matter if she is qualified or if she is smart, and it does not matter if she is experienced or she screws up in interviews, and it does not matter if she is the most articulate expositor of the conservative position.
What matters is that she represents some people's view (mainly conservative mens') of what women should be, must be.
So where they will not defend moderate or liberal women from sexism, indeed where they often were themselves the perpetrators of sexism against women like Hillary Clinton, they will rabidly rush to the defense of Palin, accusing everyone from Newsweek to Obama of sexism on the slightest provocation.
I believe and hope that one day women will be accepted by both sides of the political spectrum as complex human beings and as political leaders who deserve to be taken seriously, not as extensions of a cultural fantasy. That women politicians will be judged on the merits of their abilities and demonstrated competence in their field-- whatever it is, but in leadership especially, and not in how they fit into a cultural fantasy.
Unfortunately, with Palin, that day is not yet here.