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Oct

7

Palin Sells But We’re Not Buying? Overexposure of a Northern Exposure


Political Wire has two teases.  The first highlights new poll results indicating that, “Sarah Palin is viewed unfavorably by 48% of Americans. She is viewed favorably by just 22% — including just 44% of Republicans, 21% of independents and 6% of Democrats.”

The second reports on new Pew information: “Fully 46% say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who supported government loans to banks during the financial crisis two years ago, while nearly as many (42%) say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate backed by Sarah Palin.” [bold not in original]

Remember what Women’s eNews wrote this week:

This year’s Tea Party female politicians oppose many things that are conventionally termed women’s rights.

But if they attract more women to the game–via inspiration or opposition–they could move us closer to the long-term goal of parity, and possibly faster than anything else we could dream up.

More noise than numbers.

On top of that, even some women who are active in the “vote for any woman” groups – often voters who loved Hillary Clinton but Obama? not so much and in fact, now, really do not like Obama – are willing to see female candidates tank if they’re Democrats running against Republicans – male or female – who say that they will oppose everything that Obama supports, has done or stands for.  I detected this yesterday in a Facebook exchange regarding the NY US Senate race for Kirsten Gillibrand.

And those who really care about doing something meaningful in terms of getting past the abysmal percentages of women in Congress and state legislatures are focusing on identifying, recruiting, training, promoting and supporting quality women candidates. The NY Senate Democrat’s effort, 16% And Rising, is a great example of this as is the 2012 Project – which is completely nonpartisan and headed up by Rutgers’ Center on American Women in Politics.

Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina and Linda McMahon are all struggling of late, and a poll out today from California says that the Palin support is more likely to hurt Whitman and Fiorina than help (Independents do not see Palin favorably). Those three candidates already are trying to fight the odds of self-funders (that they rarely get far). Nikki Haley just torpedoed herself by saying that she supports drug tests for all unemployment recipients (imagine losing your job because a plant shuts down – so you have to take a drug test to get benefits from a system you paid into and otherwise have no record?). And polls indicate that Christine O’Donnell is getting no traction while Sharon Angle is also having a rough time, although appears to have the most chance right now against a weak and targeted Harry Reid. And Democrat  Diane Denish is picking up steam against Palin-backed Susanna Martinez in New Mexico.  So far, Kelly Ayotte, whom Palin before her primary though in a state well-known for wanting to go its own way, really seems to be one of the few high profile, high level female candidates connected at all to Palin who is doing well.

I know the show about Alaska was called Northern Exposure, but right now I think that some female candidates may ultimately suffer from some overexposure of the northern exposure.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:02 am October 7th, 2010 in Campaigning, Elections, Gender, Government, leadership, Media, Politics, Poll, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Transparency, Voting, Women 

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