Friday, September 5, 2008

Most interesting label put on Sarah Pallin yet...

George Meyerson has called Sarah Pallin's style "maternalized Nixonism". I really like that - it's catchy.

Meyerson does a great job distinguishing between Reaganesque Republicanism and Nixonian Republicanism, and argues that the convention has been all Nixon.
On Pallin in general: I don't think this "teenage mother" stuff should matter. And I'm convinced that nobody else does either. It's a little disturbing that the McCain campaign is trying to paint the media as ganging up on Pallin. He's able to do this by lumping together tabloid-style sources that talk about Trig being Pallin's grandson together with major news media who are legitimately questioning her qualifications and reformist credentials. So when someone asks "have you vetted her?" McCain get's all huffy and pretends they were implying something about her daughter, when really it's a very legitimate question.
Anyway - I think she's a very odd choice, but not a bad one necessarily. They're putting her up as a superlative, just like Obama. A "first woman" to match the Dems' "first black man". But of all the women to chose, Pallin seems to be a funny choice. She's no Hillary, in other words (I'm saying this and I didn't even LIKE Hillary that much). So it's all a little strange.
Jon Stewart has a really funny piece on this, where he's looking at people's criticism of Hillary and others a couple months ago and their reaction to Pallin now and how it's contradictory (this part of the show starts at around 10:45).

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