Palin Went Down to Georgia
DANNENFELSER, MARJORIE
Palin Went Down to Georgia Why her popularity is undimmed. BY MARJORIE DANNENFELSER It looks like Sarah Palin won’t be fading away. Not if Saxby Chambliss has anything to say about it. “I...
...Under media attack and scrutiny, Palin and her family became a kind of microcosm of America’s “crisis” abortion debates...
...But Palin has forebears in American politics...
...The SBA List and Team Sarah communicated through mail, phones, and radio with 400,000 registered pro-life voters in the Georgia Senate race...
...Too bad these qualities are “different” in American politics, but the palpable craving for them explains much of people’s continuing interest in her...
...The crowds that fl ock to see Palin wherever she goes have found something different in her: authenticity, charisma, and hope...
...Some of the most eloquent are women ecstatic over the new brand of feminism Palin represents: populist and pro-life...
...All these folks did a great job coming in,” he said, referring to an all-star cast of Republicans who made appearances on his behalf...
...Put another way, her attractiveness is her authenticity...
...She is feminine and she is confi - dent...
...I am not going to Washington to seek their good opinion,” she said in her convention acceptance speech, referring to the media...
...And it drives them to distraction that millions of American women either love it or are intrigued by it...
...How could she...
...Palin’s contribution to the Chambliss campaign’s impressive closing kick is evidence of two things...
...She does not try to be somebody she is not, and she has resisted the professional image packagers that threaten to unravel her appeal...
...She gives every appearance of loving her role as a wife and mother of a bunch of kids...
...Elizabeth Cady Stanton called it a sickening symptom of women’s mistreatment: “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women to treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit...
...But when she walks in a room, folks just explode...
...Our Facebookstyle political networking site has grown from 50 members to 60,000 in less than two months, the biggest surges coming when Palin-bashing crests...
...Every time Palin is hammered by the media, this stable of online supporters grows...
...It is apparent, attractive, and typical of what most American women feel, or would like to...
...And gain it, she did not...
...These are highly motivated grassroots activists, some involved in politics for the fi rst time, some seasoned types, all awaiting the next Palin project...
...BY MARJORIE DANNENFELSER It looks like Sarah Palin won’t be fading away...
...Perhaps that’s the upside of the “hokey” epithet pundits throw at her...
...Chambliss, who went from a 49.8-46.8 percent lead on November 4 to a 57-43 victory over Democrat Jim Martin in the runoff (Georgia law requires an absolute majority), credited Palin with helping his campaign “peak” with four hugely attended election-eve rallies...
...And Palin operates in a grievancefree environment...
...Witness the independent “Team Sarah” website, started September 15 by the Susan B. Anthony List, the pro-life group I head...
...She likes being a woman...
...She lives as if she believes in the natural complementarity of men and women, rather than the supposed enmity and competition of the sexes depicted as universal by left feminism...
...She takes her femininity and prolife position and strides confi dently right through those doors they feel they opened...
...To whom could she be compared—Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein...
...Her Down Syndrome baby Trig and her pregnant teenage daughter are witnesses to the life-affi rming attitudes the early feminists held...
...But their disdain—like that of the abovementioned elites— seems only to fan the fi restorm of support for her...
...Grassroots America does not want her to go away, and she has no intention of doing so...
...This confi dence is what gets under the skin of the old-guard feminists the most...
...Despite the best efforts of the media, left-of-center feminists, and a brigade of political elites, including more than a few Beltway Republicans, to write obituaries for Palin’s national political career, she continues to be the second biggest phenomenon of the 2008 election cycle, behind only the president-elect...
...There is no other woman on the national political stage like her—and hasn’t been in recent times...
...She doesn’t begin to fi t this cookie-cutter model of pro-choice, pro-genderquota woman in politics that leftfeminism has served up...
...I can’t overstate the impact she had down here,” said Chambliss shortly after his surprisingly solid 15-point victory in the December 2 Georgia Senate runoff...
...She looks a lot more like the early suffragists than anyone on the national stage now, especially in her pro-life stance...
...Marjorie Dannenfelser is president of the Susan B. Anthony List and cofounder of Team Sarah...
...Susan B. Anthony, for whom my organization is named, for instance, called abortion “child murder...
...Finally, after all these years, we see a confi dent, successful, feminine woman no more afraid of barriers than the hardest-core liberal feminist...
Vol. 14 • December 2008 • No. 13
