What makes Palin so darn attractive to us, and why is she so popular?

Whom are you calling “us”? I find her entirely repellent.

The glasses. She’s all mavericky.

She’s a pretty lady.

When i see her, i throw up in my mouth a little bit.

She isn’t attractive to me in the least.

I was a fan of Sarah’s before she was chosen for the VP pick, me and my wife saw a speech she gave and we looked at each other and said, I wish someone like that would run for president.I think it’s her common sense approach to problems that makes her popular.

hmmm…good question!

She certainly doesn’t appeal to me. She is attractive, she does have a sort of charm about her, but it’s her insides that matter. I don’t find her inner mind attractive or charming in the least.

She has that sexy librarian look.

She’s like a mental train wreck. I don’t find train wrecks attractive, but who can help watching?

I cannot stand Sarah Palin. I think she puts up a front for everyone but is completely different person behind closed doors.

I am certainly no fan, but I think a certain subset of the population likes her because she lacks pretense, she’s very what you see is what you get, and her message is one of us vs. them. If you might even kind of consider yourself an “intellectual”, then you are one of “them”. There’s this sense among “regular Joe’s” (or should I say “Joe the Plumbers”) that all the eggheads who run everything don’t know what it’s “really” like, these “Latte Liberals” may have book smarts, but it’s the Palins of the world who have common sense, street smarts. Basically, she’s akin to folklore, she doesn’t even have to say anything that makes sense, she just needs to co-opt the basic message that resonates with the common man, and viola, she’s a hero for the working class. A lot of which is really white men in their 40s who spent the first 39 years of their lives thinking the world was all theirs, they could do whatever the hell they wanted, and they hit 40 and realized they weren’t really “all that”. Now some “sexy librarian” type shows up, speaking out against the same know it alls who don’t care that you shot a 12 point buck or were the captain of the football team, and boy, that’s gonna sell a few books.

Please remove me from the “us” list. Thank you.

@dalepetrie She may seem to lack pretense, but in my opinion she is all pretense. She lies easily, she blows with the political winds, she blames others for her own errors, and she cuts and runs when the going gets tough.

Gailcalled, concider yourself gone.by

Pretty face? Sexy figure?

My attraction to her is purely physical. Otherwise, she seems ignorant and insincere to me.

Because she’s a puppet, and she’s OK with that.

She has a special needs child, I think she should be a mother until her children are grown.

Other than that I disagree with pretty much everything she says she stands for

@frdelrosario, Would you care to explain to us how this question is trollage?

GA @Mandomike Lurve.

My answer: She’s a sincere and conservative ex beauty queen. What’s not to like?

Whether you like her or not, you can’t deny that she is outspoken (though apparently not wellspoken). That is one qulity that many people admire.

Plus, there are some people that really like her views. We are a nation that is fairly polarized with a small (and shrinking) space left for the middle-ground.

@pdworkin – I guess I meant she lacks pretense to the eye of the beholder who believes in the line she’s selling.

@dalepetrie: That’s the question. What IS the line she is selling?

@proXXi: A sincere and conservative ex-beauty queen may be likeable (although I do not like this one) but would you want her as president? Do you think her eyeglass frames and pretty legs would help her discuss nuclear power with Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad?

@gailcalled, Her conservative politics and intellectual honesty would be the main reason for my wanting her as a candidate for President.

But lets face it. I believe she will be a superior statesperson for more shallow reasons too. (I believe whe would be easier to listen to than, let’s say, Janet Reno.

@dalepetrie Some believe in Santa Claus, some believe in Bigfoot, some believe in Alien Abductions, some believe in Palin’s sincerity.

@proXXi: You rang?

The line she’s selling is Conservatism. I’m all in.

Us? You have a mouse in yer pocket?

I can’t stand her. Her inner vacancy shines right out of her.

Perhaps this question isn’t for everyone…

Basically she’s selling what has become conservatism these days….keep the government off our backs, well, when it comes to economic issues, as for social issues, if it’s not in the bible, you shouldn’t be allowed.

I think that people don’t like to vote for someone that they think is smarter than they are. That’s why George W Bush won, it’s why Bill Clinton won, and it’s why Sarah Palin has a shot at the nomination in 2012.

At least Bill Clinton was secretly very intelligent despite his bumbling southern exterior. God, anyone remember when Sarah Palin was asked her opinion on the Bush Doctrine and she didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was???? As if she could even pretend to lead this nation. She’d leave it in worse shambles than George W Bush did.

Well crap, I hope the president is smarter than me!

@laureth So do I!!! (Or at the very least, better informed about, you know, politics and international relations…)

@laureth I am afraid for the country when people imply they don’t want a president who is brilliant and well educated.

Sorry, I don’t find her type attractive at all. I prefer women brains and substance over fluff and tackiness.

“Intellectual” anything does not apply to Sarah Palin. The woman’s an idiot.

Its those damn eyeglasses for me.

@augustlan What do her insides look like?

I’m with @laureth on this one.

Us? Do you have a mouse in your pocket?

I don’t see it and I can’t for the life figure out what so many others find appealing about her. She isn’t all that pretty, she isn’t very smart, she doesn’t seem the least bit genuine. I don’t understand her appeal, unless it’s the novelty of a woman running for Vice President that caught peoples eye and sparked their imaginations.

@Silhouette: Are you old enough to remember that Geraldine Ferraro ran with Walter Mondale in 1984? Reagan and Bush 41 walloped them.

@Silhouette ,Sounds to me like someone is jealous.

@ Mandomike: One doesn’t have to be jealous of a candidate to realize their shortcomings.

@Rufus_T_Firefly ,To say that Sarah is not pretty is being dishonest, you can go down the road that she is a dunderhead if you want which I believe is dishonest also but you have a right to your opinion, but she is a beautiful woman regardless of what Silhouette says.

@Mandomike: What does “go down the road” mean?

@gailcalled ,that means that she has been demonized by the left, they would like us to believe she is a complete idiot and that is the party line so you better follow it.

She’s clearly not an idiot, although she can’t really be described as a policy wonk, and she clearly needs to surround herself with some smart people if she is going to lead. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to have the self-awareness to do this, which, in my opinion, disqualifies her for high national office.

@Mandomike: I have trouble with the lump-everyone-together concept. The left is not one giant colossus who has decided to demonize a woman. I speak for myself only, but I reacted to her behavior, her speeches, her interviews, her rationalizations, and her lack of clear analytical skills.

She is attractive, but what’s that got to do with being a skilled leader?

@pdworkin , I appreciate your honest opinion, I feel it’s wrong but I do appreciate your thoughts none the less.

@Mandomike Actually, as much as I seem to disagree with @pdworkin on almost every issue we write about together, I think his last response was spot on. I don’t think I can see a thing to improve in it. I’m no Republican (as much as I’m no Democrat), but it does seem to me that the Republicans have been at sea for quite some time now in terms of a competent, confident (by which I don’t mean “oblivious”) and well-spoken candidate since… Reagan. And I know that he wasn’t “competent” by the end of his second term. (I also know that many Democrats wouldn’t agree that he met that criterion even in his first term—rim shot—but whether he was always right or not, he was competent in terms of carrying the banner.)

Not that any of the national Democrats are so astonishingly brilliant, but at least Obama is charismatic and engaging—and President.

No, I don’t understand Sarah Palin’s attractiveness—as a politician—to anyone who really thinks much.

@CyanoticWasp ,Reagan had what Obama has the ability to speak with authority but I think Reagan had one quality that Obama doesn’t and that is to inspire confidence in the American people, Obama’s speeches seem to be well written and delivered but they seem to fall flat since he took office.

@Mandomike, you seem to be ignoring the perspective thing here. That is, Reagan was able to inspire confidence in “folks who think like you”, and Obama seems to be inspiring confidence, hope, or some alloy of those things in “folks who are not so much like you”. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with the way you think, but… if you think that way, then Reagan appeals to you and gives you hope. That’s simple enough, right?

So Obama falls flat for you (and me), and Reagan falls flat for others (and me). But they both have / had great effectiveness at appealing to their core constituencies, with a spillover toward the middle that’s required to win elections and push programs.

Part of the polarizing that I see these days comes from the fact that Democrats seem to feel that they don’t even have to bother with “the middle”, since they feel like they own it—and that’s hard to disagree with nowadays. Republicans, though… I don’t know… they seem either too proud, too insular, or too… incapable? ... of explaining their core principles in a way that makes sense to uncommitted voters or sways anyone who isn’t already “one of them”. We’re living in the flip side of the 80s, I think.

I’ll admit that 30 years ago Reagan did appeal to me for a while, at least with the things he said. But I got lost in the gulf between speech and action, and no national politician has much appealed to me since then.

@Mandomike: Sorry, but there is absolutely NO dishonesty whatsoever in my statement. Sarah Palin, when taken as an individual and as a person to be trusted and as a whole package (physical appearance, intellect, lack of morality and mental cohesiveness, etc…) is about as unattractive a package as one can find. And I’m pretty sure that I’m NOT the only one who feels that way. She could be the most gorgeous woman on the face of the earth and she would still be wholly unattractive to me. Once again, no dishonesty there. If you happen to get physically or sexually aroused by the woman, you do indeed have a much stronger stomach than I.