Thursday 23 September 2010

Is Christine O'Donnell a mini-Sarah Palin?

Not quite. Three writers at Slate have produced thoughtful pieces about Christine O'Donnell. The opening salvo:
It's too easy to make Christine O'Donnell jokes. If you're not part of her intended audience of conservative voters, you can just dismiss as wacko her talk of treating masturbation like adultery, dabbling in witchcraft, and welcoming "a season of constitutional repentance." And you'll be doing her a favor—all the mockery may not broaden O'Donnell's appeal in her sober state of Delaware, but it makes her committed supporters double down. It's a lesson Sarah Palin teaches: Make fun of the down-home woman (who happens to be hot) for her quirks of speech, and you also insult all the people who identify with her.

More here and here. Another delicious quote:
[...] what is O'Donnell—a Catholic, not a Protestant evangelical—doing in the middle of this movement? O'Donnell came of age when young Catholics caught the evangelical fever. In the early '90s, she was the front line of the movement's effort to control sexual politics. (Phyllis Schlafly, who founded Concerned Women for America, where O'Donnell worked, was also raised Roman Catholic.) O'Donnell's gift has been to make herself the fetching spokeswoman for the Christian-right obsession of the moment. She had her own little Terri Schiavo, as you both pointed out. And she did her anti-masturbation riff on MTV (with sultry red lipstick and a toss of her fabulous hair, in true evangelical girl style) just when the movement best-seller I Kissed Dating Goodbye was instructing Christian girls everywhere keep their hands to themselves.

Stranger than fiction, no? As with the whole Bible Spice phenom, you just can't make this stuff up.

1 comment:

Niles said...

What's more worrisome to me is, which Canadian Conservative electwoman is striving hard to be Sarah Palin?

We know Canadian clones pop up like gophers in the wake of every new trick the Republican Teaps pull.

I say, Shelly Glover. She has the hair, the lawnorder gun cred, the gosh darn accent and public devotion to being aggressively clueless without a glimmer of irony.

vw: ingly - as in ugly, but when desperately trying to portray one's self as part of the "in" crowd.

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