It’s not unusual for politicians to inspire strong emotions. After all, there is a reason why people suggest you avoid talking about race, religion, and politics if you want to have a nice dinner conversation.
But something about Sarah Palin arouses a particularly strong reaction. Liberals attack her children, say grotesquely sexist things about her, embrace wacky conspiracy theories about her faking a pregnancy, and insult every woman in America when they suggest she can’t be a good mother and a politician, too.
Although Sarah Palin is more loved by the Right than any other politician in America, she has her detractors there as well. Staffers engage in whispering campaigns against her, quisling Republicans write offensive columns about her for liberal publications, and sneering Beltway hacks tut-tut about her on the cable news shows.
It would be understandable if Sarah Palin were president and produced this type of reaction, but the governor of Alaska? Most people couldn’t even name a half-dozen governors, much less obsess over what they’re doing.
So why does this lady produce such a big hubbub?
Well, there are many reasons for it, starting with her gender: Sarah Palin, had she been elected to the White House, would have been the first female vice president. Moreover, she has to be the odds-on favorite at this point to become the first woman president.
That upsets liberal feminists to no end because she is a living, breathing refutation of their style of feminism — which is intellectually bankrupt and seems to stand for nothing more than increasing the number of abortions, encouraging teenage girls to act like skanks, and pointlessly complaining about the “patriarchy.” Sarah Palin represents a totally different style of woman: the conservative feminist. She’s had a successful career, raised a big family, and has done it all without aborting an “inconvenient” child or carping about men keeping her down. The idea that Sarah Palin could become the new role model for feminism terrifies liberals, and it inspires them to ramp up the artillery barrage of malignity that they typically launch at conservative women — which is extraordinarily venomous to begin with. Whether it’s Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, or Carrie Prejean, there are few things on Earth that liberals hate more than strong, conservative women.
Palin’s sex has caused problems for her on the Right as well, but not the problems the Left tells you to expect — like gaggles of men who think she should be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. Despite the fact that Sarah Palin was the best thing to happen to John McCain’s presidential campaign, the honest truth is that she was an identity politics pick. Had she been a man, someone with her limited experience would have never been selected. On the Left, this wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow, but on the Right, it created waves of resentment that hurt Palin with some Republicans.
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