As I already noted, things aren't looking too good for John McCain in his Arizona Senate primary race against J.D. Hayworth. Norah O'Donnell talks to some Republican women and asks why they came to the rally and it's pretty clear from their remarks that they're big fans of Sarah Palin. She describes the three women she talked to as "very involved in politics" and said one of them was running for office for the City Council. She ended the segment with this:
O'Donnell: So Contessa, there you see, I mean it's a good group of Republican women here. This is a rally for John McCain, but there's a lot of people who've come out to see Sarah Palin. He was the Republican nominee in the last election. He was at the top of the ticket, but it's clear that Sarah Palin is now the main attraction.
There are a number of things that struck me after watching this interview along with all of the coverage of this event by the other networks, especially Fox. One, they all treated this with as much hype, and MSNBC even extended their coverage for the day to show the rally, as one would expect from something like a presidential campaign, not a primary race for a Senate seat. It seems all of the networks and not just Fox are doing their best to hype Palin as someone to take seriously as a presidential candidate. That is especially true when you combine this with the media attention she’s getting at these tea bagger rallies.
The other is that these women would look at her as some kind of role model. Here’s the kind of nonsense they had to say about her.
On why they support her:
I love her energy, her passion for doing the right thing.
She’s a good person to bring more energy and more interest into women in politics and not only that but the women that support the men who are in politics. We don’t get enough credit.
On whether she’s inciting violence:
I don’t. I listened to her last night. She’s not about violence, she’s about doing the right thing and I think she’s just trying to get people energized again and passionate about our party.
On how few Republican women are in office:
That’s correct and that’s why we like Sarah because she’s bringing attention to our plight that we need more support and we’ve got tons of things out there for women now, more educational programs to get involved in, get mentored and get up there.
How you project those types of feelings on someone who quit her job as Governor of Alaska, has been using the violent rhetoric we've all heard from her since McCain first announced her as his former running mate, and who decided cashing in as a celebrity was a better gig than working in public service for a living is beyond me. I guess that's why I'm not a Republican. There doesn't appear to me to be an ounce of logic to what any of these women said.
