John Podhoretz wrote an interesting post about Palin that I'm still thinking about. He said that her Achilles heel was her image of family instability.
whirlwinds and dust storms. These are not all of Andrew Sullivan’s
making. One reason to be oddly grateful for the loss of John McCain in
November is the question of what it would have been like to have Levi
Johnston and Bristol Palin get married, and then have the Vice
President’s machetenesteh (the great Yiddish word for “my child’s mother in law”) busted for
For Palin to have a serious future in national politics, she will
have to achieve an image of stability in her private life that it does
not now possess. It may take a decade for that to happen, as her kids
grow up and make their way themselves.
Palin's problems were deeper than Levi Johnston, but Podhoretz brings up interesting questions. Does family chaos nullify you for political life in America? Does family chaos stick to women politicians more it does to men? Bill Clinton's family life was hanging by a thread while he was in office, yet he remained in office.
During the campaign, Palin's camp spun the unwed teenage mother and the baby with Down Syndrome issues as making her a typical American. Which family doesn't have some drama in it? But Americans may not have been convinced.
I think that the reality of family chaos, rather the image of family chaos, helps to explain her exit from the political stage. Her own family surely pressured her to get out of politics, as they grew tired of being the punchline of jokes and tired of juggling responsibilities.
Palin also struck me as being someone who was completely over her head. Someone who was chosen by pollsters and pundits, because they thought she would appeal to key demographics and was telegenic, but hadn't yet earned that spot. She couldn't even handle Katie Couric. It must be terrifying to be thrown in the deep end when you are used to water-wings in the shallow end.
And there were surely money issues, as well.
Regardless of your political affiliation, it is worrisome that women with young families are discounted from public life. Yet, I think Palin's problems were bigger than Levi Johnston. If Palin had earned her spot in the deep end of the pool, the family chaos wouldn't have drowned her.
UPDATE: Peggy Noonan gives a honest account of Palin's failings and, amusingly, uses the same pool metaphor.
Apt. 11d 
I absolutely agree with your sense that she was in over her head…
As to family chaos, I suspect this is especially a problem if you are coming from the right-wing, the “base” of which wants to believe that it has a monopoly on “family values.” Even though the base stuck with her through thick and thin, the evident hypocrisy (I know, there is hypocrisy in all politicians) likely turned off independents…
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Wouldn’t it make more sense that what the American people want is more and better hypocrisy, and that Palin’s problem was that her problems were all out there in plain sight?
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Do you really think she intends this is as an exit from the political stage? I sincerely doubt that’s the plan, though it may turn out that way (pretty please).
People who are terrified because they’re in over their heads respond to coaching, which by all accounts, Palin emphatically did not (well, smart people, anyway). I don’t think she knew that she was in over her head. To stay with your metaphor, she was thrown into the deep end with water wings, so she thought she could really swim.
But I have to totally agree on your last point (though I’d expand beyond only women with young families). It’s to the detriment of everyone that women participate less in public life. This circles back to the discussion on women working/not working that have been going on this week.
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“Do you really think she intends this is as an exit from the political stage?” I don’t know and I don’t think she knows. There many accounts last week that this resignation wasn’t planned. Her staff didn’t know and hadn’t prepared remarks for her (which was painfully obvious). This was a quick, uncalculated resignation from what I have read.
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Sarah Palin’s “failure” seems to me to be completely overdetermined. McCain was behind in the polls before he picked her, and after a short spike went right back down.
Hillary Clinton had all sorts of drama (of a different type, but still), and I think she would have beaten John McCain just as/ almost as easily. If she chose to, I bet Elizabeth Edwards could win a Senate seat. So, I wouldn’t generalize too much about how chaos sticks to “women.”
If anything, it stuck to Palin because there wasn’t much else there. If she were Christie Whitman and ran Bush’s EPA for a few years, there would have been enough meat to her record that her wardrobe and her family would have been an afterthought. Absent anything resembling a “record,” the realm of possibilities expanded.
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“Wouldn’t it make more sense that what the American people want is more and better hypocrisy, and that Palin’s problem was that her problems were all out there in plain sight? ”
This is quite a stretch…
What are some examples of those who practice “better hypocracy”? (I’ll agree that the current crop of in-the-news Republicans (Sanford, Palin, etc.) are embarrassingly bad hypocrites.)
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Sanford and Palin are both really weird examples for hypocrisy. Sanford for one, has been going around telling the world how much he loves his Argentinian. Proper technique for the modern hypocrite is to have your cake and eat it to, to weep, apologize, wring your hands, win voters’ and wives’ forgiveness, and continue enjoying whatever it is you enjoy more discreetly than before.
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