Sarah Palin's Debate Performance Tanked Among Women

[Joanne98]

I have been feeling really guilty about not liking Sarah Palin. She's independent, her husband helps raise the kids, she's worked most of her life. I should luv her. But the minute she minced on stage in St. Louis Thursday, with her shoulder-length hair and stiletto heels, I realized why I don't: she's The Rules Girl.

Remember The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right, Ellen Fein's and Sherry Schneider's explosively controversial 1995 book that upended thirty years of feminist teaching about dating? Forget all that equality and intelligence stuff, The Rules advised. Who wants to be Hillary Clinton? Men are simple, attracted to sexual symbols and bright, shiny objects. If you want them, they argued, you must sport long hair and wear sexy, attention-getting clothes. The suit Palin wore for the debate was some amazingly iridescent material, and she sported an eye-popping sparkly rhinestone flag pin. The governor as the It Girl of the '90s singles scene.

As the capital-letter Rules recommend, Palin knows she must Never Leave the House Without Makeup. And, so far in this campaign, she has scrupulously followed The Rules for dealing with mainstream media suitors: Rarely Return Their Calls. Always End the Date First. Never Make a Date for Saturday Night After a Wednesday Date. Never Make a Date for Meet the Press At All.

Palin follows all The Rules most indigestible to feminists. Let Him Take the Lead ("Bush Doctrine? In what respect, Charlie?") and Never Tell Him What to Do or Try to Change Him (John McCain: "Governor Palin and I agree that you don't announce that you're going to attack another country." Palin: "Well, as Senator McCain is suggesting here, also, never would our administration get out there and show our cards to terrorists, in this case, to enemies and let them know what the game plan was, not when that could ultimately adversely affect a plan to keep America secure.")

The Rules provide a perfect model for GOP media prep. How a Rules Girl acts does not have to reflect what she really believes -- or even what she knows, so long as it's effective with the target audience. As with all such disconnected systems, a practitioner must keep The Rules nearby for reference. If you watch the video of Thursday's debate, you'll see that Palin constantly consulted her notecards. Fein and Schneider recommend keeping a copy of their book on the bedside table, hidden from view but close enough to consult if you're tempted to, for example, linger on a phone call with a boyfriend beyond the prescribed time.

The danger is, of course, when a situation arises for which the notecards do not have an answer. When Gwen Ifill asked a question Palin did not have a notecard answer for -- whether she agreed with Vice President Cheney's egregiously overreaching interpretation of the constitutional role of the vice president -- the answer was ladled up straight from the Palin linguistic smorgasbord:



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http://www.alternet.org/election08/101536/sarah_palin's_debate_performance_tanked_among_women/

[Ian David]

1. Rush Limbaugh killed the McCain campaign.

Limbaugh's Operation: Kaos accomplished nothing but to fool the McCain campaign into thinking they had to pick a woman to lure the imaginary PUMA women.

[Forkboy]

4. And the irony of what few PUMAs there were helping elect Obama is highly enjoyable.

:)

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

2. She broke a cardinal rule with women...Don't flirt with Joe-Six-Pack's wife or girlfriend.

'

[crispini]

3. Hee....

great bit here:

But for decades, the voting-age population has been predominantly female: women vote at a greater rate and usually a little differently from men. Despite all the talk of disaffected Hillary supporters crossing over to the GOP after Obama's nomination, serious pollsters found no such thing. Some pundits say Palin did fine last night, but thanks to CNN, we were able to test in real time exactly how the Palin performance played with women voters. CNN provided a little chart that shows how the debaters were faring with a focus group of independent voters from the swing state of Ohio. On the chart, the men's reactions show up green and women in orange. Guess what? Palin really tanked among those women. There were times when the line showing the women's disapproval of her answers sank so low it threatened to leap off the screen and start crawling down the wall behind the TV. I'm imagining those Ohio independents as having a vivid picture of a fully made-up, dimpled, winking woman trying to work the crowd from her tattered copy of The Rules.

[Homer12]

5. My wife

Who is moderate to left leaning thought that Palin's "down-home-cougar" was nothing more than and act.

[Whisp]

6. her cutsey winking jiggling drill baby drill was disgusting.

she's using her sexuality in a most obscene way and sets women back a long ways on being taken seriously on important matters.

she's a disgusting dumb pig.

[iamjoy]

7. I Liked Her Last Night

And I'm female. I thought she was cute, charming and amusing - not nasty like she was at the Convention. Even when I shook my head and rolled my eyes at her responses, I was smiling. Then I remembered she was running for Vice President, not auditioning for a gabby show on Fixed Noise.

It occurred to me weeks ago, the way the McSame campaign kept her sequestered that they were playing "The Rules" with Palin.

[MindMatter]

22. Maybe she was

auditioning for a job on Faux. This last 60 days can't be too helpful to her political career in Alaska.

[OwnedByFerrets]

23. You "like" lying Pieces of Crap?

I know what you were saying, but I cant stand the woman. But then, I have a real problem with liars.

[iamjoy]

27. It's Become Amusing

You know that acquaintance of yours who is always telling tall tales? You know he (or she) is lying, but some how the person is kind of charming anyway. As long as you feel like they are getting or will get their just desserts, the fact that he/she plays fast and loose with the truth in the interest of a good narrative is just a source of head shaking and smiling.

As long as McSame is down in the polls and even Conswervatives are down on Palin, her folksy manner and failure to provide cohesive responses to the problems our nation faces is sort of cute. Let the polls changed, and she will just make me sick to my stomach.

[jazzjunkysue]

29. That's what it is! I've been trying to put my finger on it: Sit com. She wants a role on a sit com.

If you add up all of her public schtick, she's acting like she's on a long audition for a crappy TV sit com.

I mean, she inspires insipid laugh tracks. She's got the timing down, and doesn't need a real live TV audience: She amuses herself so damn much.

She's the spunky pseudo-feminist church-lady in $300 pumps with a laptop and 5 crazy kids. Lands on the couch with the loyal, beleagered low-profile husband at the end of every episode.

They're a modern Archie and Edith Bunker.

She thinks she's on effing TV.

[morillon]

33. I hate her.

She's shallow, mean-spirited, and utterly convinced of her own cleverness. She is a despicable human being, and I can't smile at ANYTHING she says.

[Larry in KC]

37. A man here who totally agrees. She deserves scorn and hatred...

...and that's what I feel toward her. Her act certainly doesn't appeal to me, it appalls me. I'm eager for her to go away.

I must say, though, that I can smile at some things she says, but only when she doesn't want to be smiled at. Like many of her party do, she triggers a real schadenfreude reaction in me when she screws up badly. Not exactly the reaction of a Mahatma, I admit, but there it is.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

8. wasn't there live rating on the debate that showed this - where is it?

diring the Obama debate there were live ratings and analysis. Was there one done on the Biden debate. I don't seem to be able to find it.

[intheflow]

12. It was on CNN and mentioned on page two of this article.

But for decades, the voting-age population has been predominantly female: women vote at a greater rate and usually a little differently from men. Despite all the talk of disaffected Hillary supporters crossing over to the GOP after Obama's nomination, serious pollsters found no such thing. Some pundits say Palin did fine last night, but thanks to CNN, we were able to test in real time exactly how the Palin performance played with women voters. CNN provided a little chart that shows how the debaters were faring with a focus group of independent voters from the swing state of Ohio. On the chart, the men's reactions show up green and women in orange. Guess what? Palin really tanked among those women. There were times when the line showing the women's disapproval of her answers sank so low it threatened to leap off the screen and start crawling down the wall behind the TV. I'm imagining those Ohio independents as having a vivid picture of a fully made-up, dimpled, winking woman trying to work the crowd from her tattered copy of The Rules.

That's exactly what I noticed watching this, too. Every time Palin winked that orange line took a nose dive!

[LiberalFighter]

17. I had CNN's live meter on the split screen and noticed women dropped with Palin.

[morillon]

34. The people I know who hate her the most are women.

They don't even call her Palin. It's THAT WOMAN.

[CrispyQ]

13. CNN had the live meter.

My take on the meter.

She consistently flat-lined on these three things:

1) folksy talk
2) John McCain the "maverick"
3) being confrontational with Biden

Overall, Biden's lines were higher more often. The debate didn't start that way - she was doing much better than Biden for about 20 minutes. Then Biden found his stride & it started to become apparent that she was simply reciting what she had memorized. Like I said in another thread at the beginning of the debate, "the night is young. She's using up all her ammo & still has a ways to go."

[Rosa Luxemburg]

24. please do you have a link to the meter

thanks.

[CrispyQ]

32. Here's a link to CNN's videos of the debate

but it doesn't appear to include the meter. I guess it was for debate night only. Maybe YouTube has some clips - they would have to be from CNN. I think they were the only station to use the meter.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/vpdebate.videos/index.html?iref=newssearch

[Rosa Luxemburg]

36. Thanks!

[Quantess]

9. "The Rules", LOL.

The authors are divorced now! Nobody likes being manipulated.

[jmondine]

16. That, and the rules seem tailor made to attract insecure, ego-centric men

[EstimatedProphet]

21. Just like the ones that like Sarah Palin.

[JI7]

10. she is a phony, she is not Ann Richards

there are many people who have a certain way of speaking like Ann Richards that appeals to people.

but Palin just came off as phony and trying too hard. and i said before that it was very condescending to the small town people it was supposed to appeal to and to the women it was supposed to appeal to.

as if women are not going to consider issues but just hear her say hockeymom and vote for her.

[Chloroplast]

35. Ugh, I feel like cracking people in the teeth when they compare Palin and Richards.

:mad: Gov. Richards and her barbs were legendary; Gov. Palin is a cheap knock-off.

[young_at_heart]

11. I have a daughter her age and she NEVER talks in such a stupid way

Are we back in Jr. High or even lower? If one of my friends talked to me in such a phony "folksy" way I'd look for a new friend very quickly.

[juno jones]

14. Great article!

And so right on.

[4_Legs_Good]

15. Women don't like being talked to like they're 4 years old

... neither do men for that matter. That's what I find particularly putoffish aobut her. She's up there making comments like she's talking to her children. I talk like that sometimes... TO MY CHILDREN!!!

I don't talk like that to adults, I particularly don't talk like that when I'm running for elected office.

She can throw all the folksy winks she wants, and while I find it irritating, I don't find it offensive. Her "That's not how good guys talk..." comments, OTOH...

:grr:

David

[JuniperLea]

18. Winking

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7302986&mesg_id=7302986

zulchzulu created this killer picture! Kudos!!

[jazzjunkysue]

30. OMG! He really looks like he's having a stroke!! It's too sad to be funny.

I mean, she's a bully and a liar and shouldn't be in any kind of legislature. But that picutr of him is too sad to be funny.

[crazy_vanilla]

19. do you think she would strain her brain to read?

Even if it was Rules :puke:

[angyroo]

20. maybe amongst THINKING women...

I think we need to remember that a lot of men and women in America, (modern society) are afraid to think for themselves. From a very young age we've been told to follow the rules, salute, be proud about our president, etc; and not to follow our own inner voice.
We tend to be easily swayed by emotional, primal urges, (including the sexual).
I think the original post here hit it right on the money: she's a "rules girl."
Or the "it" girl.
Thinking people are rightly horrified by the neanderthal level that our national discourse is
continuing to descend to; but the manipulators on high are very cleverly affecting the uncertain, confused, (and fearful) general populace at a gut level.
The "Rules Girl" has a power in people's minds... the memory of school, when the alpha males and females ruled and we had to shut the f__k up and go along.
We may no longer be in high school; but many of those memories have a power nonetheless.
The right wing (which includes a lot of so-called "democrats," of course) understands this very well; and they use it against us.
We need to wake up, get past the ridiculous appearance, and smell the REAL POWER behind the circus.
Or we're doomed.

[maxsolomon]

26. well, the CNN knob-twiddlers were undecided ohio voters.

when she flirted, the undecided women instantly didn't like it. "thinking" obama supporters were irritated to their cores.

my opinion is that anyone who's undecided at this point isn't a "thinking" person. there really isn't a choice. obama/biden is a superior ticket in every aspect.

[mnhtnbb]

25. Twit for twat.

[ecstatic]

28. Nothing wrong with being a rules girls

some women are like that naturally with no rules.

The issue is that Palin is out of her league! Her act might work in Alaska but not in the bigger cities and states. She has NO business up on that stage!

[nam78_two]

31. Good article-but personally as a feminist and a professional woman

I have not felt one bit guilty about not liking this woman-not one teeny bit.

I am a feminist-I believe in absolutely equal rights for both genders but that does not mean I have to endorse or support the opinions of every person out their with a vagina. Sarah Palin stands for everything I am against-she is an anti-science, anti-environment, war-mongering religious nut...I do not feel ONE BIT guilty about not supporting this person. Not one bit..