Washington Post: Conservative women excited about Bachmann/Palin yet stray from identity politics?

[alp227]

Huh? This Washington Post article "Conservative women enthusiastic about Bachmann, Palin" by Sandhya Somashekhar contradicts itself:

DOVER, N.H. — They don’t like identity politics and aren’t crazy about the word “feminist.” But a lot of conservative women here can’t help but rejoice that they may have a couple of tough-talking, tea-drinking mothers to choose from in the Republican primary.

Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is on the verge of announcing her intentions, and former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is contemplating a bid. If either runs, it would be the first time since Elizabeth Dole’s bid in 1999 that a viable female candidate has sought the Republican nomination for president.

Kellyanne Conway, a GOP pollster, said conservatives generally do not like identity politics and tend to say they are not considering a candidate’s sex or race in their decision. Republican women historically have not shown a greater propensity to vote for women than men, Conway said. But voters increasingly are looking for candidates to whom they can personally relate, and Palin and Bachmann fit the bill for an energized base of Republican women, she said.

“While other male politicians were building their careers, these women were making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” Conway said. “The populist appeal is right for these times, when people identify with a much more mainstream, non-Ivy League-educated, entrepreneurial, mother-of-five candidate.”

It seems that this article is trying to distance conservatives from identity politics - a concept that conservatives frequently hammer liberals on when it comes to black voters/Obama, for instance - but ultimately it ends up proving that candidates of anywhere in the spectrum can capitalize on their identity. Wikipedia defines identity politics as " political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance."

Conservative identity politicians?
- Herman Cain (in a new campaign video he talked about how his great-great-grandparents were slaves and he's now running for president (race).
- Palin and Bachmann as this article reported (gender).
- If a candidate talks about God or faith frequently - Christine O'Donnell comes to mind - then the candidate is appealing to voters' religious sensibilities. Activists such as Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed have raised much money based on religiously conservative political advocacy.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I think I know what makes them tick.

It's like reverse projectionism, whereby they're living out their fantasies through Palin and Bachmann. They likely live in a household where their husbands make most of the important decisions without their input. They go to a fundamentalist church that tells women to stay silent and to submit to their husbands.

Now they see these "feisty" Christian women who not only "won't shut up and sit down", but can actually be leaders that their husbands will have to submit to and obey if they are elected. Compared to their lives and their friends' lives, these women are exciting.

As far as the Post labeling these women as "conservative", I hold back in extending the description to this demographic. They are the women who used to show up for George Wallace rallies and voted reluctantly for Nixon when Wallace wasn't an option. When I think conservative women, I think Clare Booth Luce, Tricia Nixon, Pat Nixon, Martha Mitchell, Mrs. William F. Buckley. The women in the article are not part of their club. They are neo-neocons.

[gejohnston]

2. I don't think neo cons because

they tend to be educated and love the empire at all costs. Some of them are bright but greedy and evil. These two are regressive theocrats, or just dim witted sock puppets with no real opinions of their own. One thing I want to know is are they really that stupid or is it an act to make themselves stand out to get noticed.