The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

The Rain in Spain ...

A guest post from XX reader, Nicole Beckton:

In thinking about Sarah Palin's first big national evening, I realized that one of the "benefits" of McCain's pick is his total control of—if not her image, that's now impossible—her policies, her ideas, all of her political substance. Because of Palin’s perceived lack of interest/indifference to serious foreign policy concerns and limited record of opinions on such matters, she is a dream pick for McCain because, unlike Joe Biden, who has thought substantively about global and domestic concerns for decades, Sarah Palin is a relative blank slate.

Palin is an ultra-conservative who seems likely (because of her lack of experience) to pretty much accept anything the McCain campaign tells her to think about foreign and domestic policy. In fact what she has been asked to do, in preparation for this evening, is to simply parrot McCain on every ideological and policy level: To not have a mind of her own, to not have come to her opinions on our most pressing problems through careful thought, reflection, analysis, or legislative action. She is clearly willing to do so. That’s why Lindsey Graham raves that “she's smart and she will learn over time.” That’s why McCain advisers have said that part of her appeals for him was that “he felt she would be able to be educated quickly.”
Palin is thus the attractive new face of neo-conservativism with no recorded policy thoughts of her own. As a woman, this is more insulting to me than the fact that they barely vetted her—although I'm disturbed by that too! I think they vetted her just enough to know they could control her big policy positions ... unlike Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Olympia Snowe, Meg Whitman, and other more qualified female GOP leaders. Simply put, it feels like they picked a woman with no record or opinion on tough FOREIGN POLICY positions ... but with extremely strong views on DOMESTIC social issues—all of which seems to me to say, she's being kept in her place.