If memory serves, Ferraro was in her 50's when she ran with Mondale. It's likely she was no longer fertile--in the literal sense.

Zuh? Palin had a child last summer, whereas Ferraro was 49 when she ran for VP, and Hillary is 61.

He's claiming she's indisputably fertile. She just had another kid. How is that ridiculous? Are you the one disputing it?

Whether it's a relevant point or not...

Not defending this Purdum fellow, whom I've never heard of, but think you may be missing a point by conflating fertility and sexual attractiveness. It's possible that Purdum was making two separate points here, and not just using fertility as a euphemism for "fuckability". Think about this. You could argue that Palin's fertility is a bigger threat to elite liberal whites than her looks are. Hillary Clinton had exactly one kid, and (so far) has no grand kids. Sarah Palin has a bunch of kids, and is now a grandmother already. Educated, coastal, liberal whites tend to have few children and have them late. If their kids don't qualify for competitive admissions public schools (e.g., Stuyvesant in NYC), they tend to be wary of putting their kids in public school*. So they have to pay for private school, which makes having more children extremely expensive.

Being highly educated, these liberals know that if prole whites like Palin (whose family does icky stuff such as hunting, going to church, working on oil fields, etc.) keep lapping them in fertility, Palin-types will gain political power at the expense of Hillary-types (i.e., educated liberal women who have few if any kids).

*In fact, a Sunday NY Times article on seven NYC valedictorians (which I blogged about elsewhere) noted that one of the seven valedictorians featured -- the one from Stuyvesant -- was home schooled up until he went to high school.

It's worth actually reading this sentence and figuring out what it means:

An aspect of the Palin phenomenon bears examination, even if raising it invites intimations of sexism: she is the best-looking woman to rise to such heights, the first fertile female to dance with the big dogs.

I cut out unnecessary words. The sentence is clearly saying that these two things are, together, one aspect of the Palin phenomena: she's the best looking and she's fertile. So, yeah, he's not just stating that she's fertile, he's saying that it's a quality equivalent to looking good (fuckability's as good a word for this "aspect" as any).

Charitably, that was the point that was being made. Uncharitably, it was about her fuckaility.

While I do agree to Sarah Palin is an attractive woman, I think her looks are somewhat overrated. Certainly Michelle Obama is far more attractive than Sarah Palin, and the First Lady is in the same age group as Palin. In addition, when Hilary Clinton became First Lady, she was about the same age as Sarah Palin is now, and Hilary at that age was much better looking than Sarah Palin is now. Finally, the young brunette Hilary Rodham puts the young beauty queen contestant Sarah Palin to shame.

That is bunch of utter nonesense.

Sometimes you offer pretty smart commentary, but all too often you just do seemingly politer versions of Fox News crap.

Cultural Conservatives have this idea that us coastal liberals are obsessed with them and constantly worried about them. Here is the brutal truth, we don't think about you much at all. The opposite of love isn't hate, it is apathy. We don't care if you have 15 kids each, we don't care if you hunt or camp or go to church, or whatever. What we care about is issues, Sex education and access to birth control, abortion, Gun Control, Separation of church and state, Gay Marriage and so on. We care about Cultural conservatives to the extent that they oppose us on those political issues, we don't care how they live their private lives.

Dave,

I am fine with the dissent. But you have to deal with the fact that entire paragraph is, very much, about her attractiveness. The fertility point is a mere phrase, and having thought about, I'd add that it's put there to make the point that she is not just physically attractive, but sexually active, and that that sexual activity makes her somehow more attractive.

Again, here is the entire quote:

Another aspect of the Palin phenomenon bears examination, even if the mere act of raising it invites intimations of sexism: she is by far the best-looking woman ever to rise to such heights in national politics, the first indisputably fertile female to dare to dance with the big dogs. This pheromonal reality has been a blessing and a curse. It has captivated people who would never have given someone with Palin's record a second glance if Palin had looked like Susan Boyle. And it has made others reluctant to give her a second chance because she looks like a beauty queen.

He refers to her status as "best looking" and her indspitable fertility as a "pheromonal reality." Perhaps that isn't a reference to the concept of fuckability. It seems, though, to be a very clear reference to her sexual attractiveness. He isn't discussing Susan Boyle because of her status as a mother--he's discussing her attractiveness. The entire graph is about that. It strikes me as dishonest to pretend that it isn't.

It's been that way since at least the birth of the Southern Strategy, if not before.

As for "elites" and "elitists", I refer any and all to the insights of the brilliant mind of David Rees, @ Get Your War On:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bdVR-JIDi2g/SUxnPq4kg7I/AAAAAAAAL9c/Fpyl4Q33Oew/s1600/east-coast-elitist.jpeg

None of these women were "fertile" (by which he does seem to mean "fuckable"), and none were terribly attractive to the majority of the population. And under this reading, his commentary makes more sense.

http://xkcd.com/603/

There's a reason why, from beginning to end,

WOMEN

always had Palin's number.

We knew exactly who she was from Day One.

As time went on, those on the fence realized that their first suspicions about her were true.

WOMEN sunk Sarah Palin.

Remember Rich Lowery and his startburts? There were other posts on NRO about how her combination of attractiveness and fertility was a threat to liberals. They are projecting their own hang-ups about female sexuality onto us.

And I don't want this to turn into a debate about how attractive she is, but I think this is relevant. I don't find her that stunning, I think she has the generic attractiveness that you find in TV anchors. Why I think this is relevant is we pretend that attractiveness doesn't matter for male politicians, but that simply isn't true. How many male politicians are basically little more than well spoken generically handsome men, Achorman looking types, not Brad Pitt or George Clooney. Hell that probably just described at least half the Republicans in Congress. Basically Palin is the female equivalent, minus the well spoken part:-)

Sexism is the major reason why that's the case. To concern-troll about being called a sexist, while ignoring that fact seems silly.

"This pheromonal reality has been a blessing and a curse."

One SMELLS pheromones -- they don't work when you watch someone on TV.

As someone else pointed out, she did not "rise" but was placed -- by a guy who (big surprise) left his first wife for a hot younger woman.

Also he says "This pheromonal reality has been a blessing and a curse. It has captivated people who would never have given someone with Palin's record a second glance if Palin had looked like Susan Boyle. And it has made others reluctant to give her a second chance because she looks like a beauty queen."

That's like saying it's a blessing and a curse to win a million dollars, because you might have some trouble dealing with the money -- the fact is that being good looking is a huge net positive for any politician (think Kennedy-Nixon debates and the radio/Tv distinction of who won the debate).

Finally, the idea that anybody is 'threatened' by Palin because she has many kids (some just before the election cycle) is laughable -- her personal story was a huge asset until it revealed a brainless narcissistic twit.

Palin may appeal to many prole whites (particularly to ones like her husband Todd), but she is no more a prole white than Rod Blagojevich is. A politician who is elected to a statewide office (even in Alaska) is by definition not a prole.

Moreover, you are making the mistake of conflating all female voters with liberal leanings with your stereotypical cosmopolitan elite professional woman (a Sex and the City type). The average liberal female voter is not someone like Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw or even Candice Bergen's Murphy Brown, but rather someone like Rosanne Connor or Claire Huxtable or Meredith Birney's Elyse Keaton; a socially conscious urban or suburban resident with kids who wants them to have greater opportunities than she ever had, and thus is drawn to politicians who believe that government plays a key role in allowing access to such opportunities. Therefore, I am not sure that conservative mothers are outlapping liberal mothers in the overall number of kids that are born in US, even if conservative mothers have a higher fertility rate (since liberal leaning women greatly outnumber conservative leaning women, even when we limit the female population to women with kids).

Even if the Sarah Palin types are having more kids than the Hillary Clinton types, there is no guarantee than the majority of those kids will actually be conservative, and even the ones that are conservatives won't necessarily be as conservative as Sarah Palin.

But you have to deal with the fact that entire paragraph is, very much, about her attractiveness. The fertility point is a mere phrase, and having thought about, I'd add that it's put there to make the point that she is not just physically attractive, but sexually active, and that that sexual activity makes her somehow more attractive.

You could be right that Purdum may only be using fertility here as a proxy for sexual activity. In that case, I think he's missing more important aspects of the Palin phenomena (both her grass roots appeal and the wrath she attracts from some elites).

I'll also add that he recently did respond to commenters here on his conservatism. And he was humble enough to admit when the commenters that called him out were right.

I really don't think it could be. That was, and remains, her primary asset. That's why she seemed such a formidable opponent right up until she did her first interview.

It's not just that she had a new baby -- it's that she carried that child with her everywhere she went. Deplaning for campaign appearances, onstage at rallies. And OMG did she ever make every possible effort to play up the cutes. Those boots, and the winking, with a six-year-old holding her hand on one side and a baby on the other hip. And no complaints from the campaign when college republicans put out a t-shirt with "VPILF" on the front, "coldest state hottest governor" on the back.

I haven't read the article yet -- does it mention how truly blatant was the attempt to pander to disgrunted Hillary voters? Sarah's very first public statement, at the announcement, was "Hillary put cracks in the glass ceiling, but the women of America aren't done yet..." The feeling my sister and I got, that day, was that John McCain was telling us "one cunt's the same as another." (yes, just that crudely. is there a filter on comments here to let that through?)

I am missing the controversy. What has Purdum said that is demostrably untrue?

Perhaps you should solicit the opinions of some women of accomplishment on Palin's bona fides and see if their conclusions are substantially different from those rendered by Purdum.

I guess the other side to it is your definition of "such heights in national politics." If the judiciary is truly on par with the executive branch, as it's intended, then Ginsburg, Day O'Connor, and perhaps Sotomayor (if confirmed) have risen to higher heights in national politics than has Palin - actual participants instead of mere candidates. And by another barometer, Albright and Clinton have risen to higher heights, as they're in actual national policy-making positions, which Palin never reached.

It's certainly semantics to some degree, but I maintain that Purdum was referring to all of these women for all of these reasons, and not intending to compare Palin simply to Ferraro. It's understandable to take it literally, though.

To date, there have been very few (any?) women "allowed" to be demonstrably currently fucking while running for office, and even more importantly, showing that they like to get fucked by wearing red high heels, lots of makeup and fancy eyeglasses.)

I hate saying fuck so much, but I figure it's okay since you said it first!

I can't believe I am actually clarifying that sentence.

Last year or so he put up a vote to have comments and it came in overwhelmingly in favor of not having comments. You could also e-mail him since he does read e-mails and sometimes posts them on his blog as well.

http://demo.wonkette.com/221348/loretta-sanchezs-christmas-card/
http://wonkette.com/404962/california-congresslady-loretta-sanchez-proves-its-really-christmastime-with-her-latest-horrific-holiday-card

Since my grandparents were definitely proles, though, and so were my husband's parents, maybe I don't fit into your little box.

That said, Jennifer D. has a point. Condi never gave the impression she was having sex with anybody. (Fucking people, sure, millions of them, but that's a different topic)

If you had Andrew's traffic, you could hire someone to maintain civility in your comments section.

Let's face it though, Sullivan has a widely read blog and he himself selects the "dissents" he decides to publish. He may have many reasons to do this, but it is a system that certainly lends itself to cowardice. He can write whatever nonsense he wants, knowing that it would only be debunked on a comparatively lesser level because he has created the biggest soapbox.

And, yes, I realize that Sullivan conducted a vote about comments last year. He counted the votes himself and, I should note, stopped the voting before the scheduled end.

I didnt say it folks, Herc did. You know he's a meathead.

And given the hilarity that ensured when Will Ferrell did his sexy Michael McDonald burlesque with a Condi stand-in, others got it too ;)

Not the least of which is probably Mr. Coates himself! ha ha ha

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0330,coates,45701,1.html

Hah!