Momma grizzlies with moola are on the march, as Linda McMahon of Connecticut joins Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman of California in bicoastal bids for a hostile takeover of American government.
Since Sarah Palin wowed voters with a wisecrack about hockey moms as pit bulls with lipstick and went on to make a mouthy mint in the media from a lost election and an abandoned governorship, a new kind of political woman has emerged in America.
Far from the image of a pants-suited Hillary Clinton with the gravitas to govern on Day One, these candidates are capitalizing on anti-incumbent fervor, asking voters to trust their total lack of experience in the workings of the political process.
McMahon, who made a fortune as a wrestling promoter, is spending $50 million to strong-arm her way into the Senate while Fiorina, who was paid to go away as the chief executive of Hewlett Packard, is trying to unseat Barbara Boxer, one of the most respected legislative leaders in Washington.
Whitman, who got rich enabling people to sell one another junk on the Internet, wants to follow in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose tenure should have made Californians wary of electing a political amateur.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Barack Obama has named two qualified women to the Supreme Court and appointed to his cabinet others such as Clinton, Kathleen Sebelius and Janet Napolitano.
But in that theme park called Palinworld, qualifications don't count.
Palin herself, we learn from another exemplar of 21st-century femininity, Arianna Huffington, is morphing into a Jungian archetype in our collective unconscious, one of those "universal images that have existed since the remotest times...deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity."
All this has come to pass in less than two years, a Biblical span in the Internet era with the sacred scripture taking the form of a "Momma Grizzlies" video.
Lest we dismiss Palin as an entertainer, Huffington cites a Carl Jung warning that there are "explosive and dangerous forces hidden in the archetype come into action, frequently with unpredictable consequences. There is no lunacy people under the domination of an archetype will not fall prey to."
Dismissive critics of the Tea Party, take note.
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8 comments:
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Paris Hilton of politics.
I long for a time when people could ask me about either of these people and simply answer "who?".
The Dems elected Obama and Palin has as much experience as him. He spent 7 years working part time in the Illinois senate and didn't have a single piece of legislation that he written and finessed over the years tee'd up ready for a Democratic governor to sign when one was finally elected. he didn't bother to take a stand on innumerable issues. And in the end, Emil Jones had to take legislation away from other state senators and put Obama's name on it for him to have a resume. How is working 55 days a year in the Illinois senate and, literally, not accomplishing anything of your own volition superior experience to being mayor of a small town? Then Obama went to the US senate for three years and Palin became governor for three years?
If Obama is qualified, Palin is qualified.
That's the problem with electing yahoos like Obama - well, that and the resulting horrendously rightwing legislation that presidents with limited intellects and experienced inevitably foist on the populace.
Obama justifies Palin's career. It's that simple.
You're kidding, right? Palin QUIT halfway through her term. Before that, she'd only been mayor of a tiny town. Even I can see the difference between being mayor and being a senator. The words have totally different letters!
Palin's a cheerleader for a politcal perspective, one that the voters rejected. It makes for great soundbites, but very poor governing. Her presence on the politcal scene has undone decades of feminist progress. If she weren't attractive, no one would listen to her. That's why her prominence is so unfortunate: a huge part of feminism is the idea that women should be treated as equals to men and respected, regardless of their looks. They don't have to be beautiful to be successful. But Palin reinforces the message that they do, and that it doesn't matter what a woman's qualifications are; as long as she's pretty, she'll go places.
No, Obama's career does not justify Palin's career. It's always fun to run into a Palin fan in the wild, spouting Koolaid-fueled fantasies. Palin was the mayor of a tiny town in the least populated state in the union, and then she quit as its governor to scoop up cash from gullible idiots who buy into her brand of smirking, gum-crackin', real people bigotry and ignorance. Death panels, anyone? Refudiate? Islam in America is a stab in the heart? I will give Palin one thing: she's incredibly, breathtakingly crooked, and her fans are worse than she is.
The rise of the new conservative woman is interesting. Loud, obnoxious, and full of venom. If they had anything intelligent to say it would be groundbreaking, but for some reason their emotionalism is gaining ground. Here's hoping intellectual progressive (redundant, eh?) women will speak their minds and outshine emotion.
Gee, Lori, all those "facts" and no sources.
This must be conservative talk radio and I'm actually in the wrong place. I thought it was a blog.
Lori, PLEASE tell me you're joking. You only have to read a few pages of any of Obama's books to realise how intelligent, articulate and insightful the man is. And then there's Sarah Palin who is a deluded, ignorant, poorly educated, lunatic creationist who would wreak havoc on the economy, education system and virtually every other part of America that isn't already falling apart. The fact that you can't recognise that difference between these two people is a testament, not to their abilities, but to your sincere lack of ability.
I agree with ginmar. Well said.
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