Cowgirl Sarah

Virginia Postrel recalls visiting the National Cowgirl Museum and seeing an aspect of American history that helps explain Sarah Palin's appeal:

The Cowgirl Museum showcased women of no-nonsense character, pioneer (and pioneering) achievement, physical daring, and unapologetic femininity. Full of inspiring role models, the museum presented a piece of feminist history that gets left out of the city-oriented accounts most of us learn...

This all came back to me when I heard Sarah Palin's convention speech and thought about how so many smart--but parochially "cosmopolitan"--miss the enormous appeal of her persona. She may have wrangled fish rather than cattle, but she shares the cowgirl tradition.

I think this both smart and, more usefully, right. Palin represents a certain ideal of American womanhood. It is easy to joke about moose-hunting and all the rest of it, but she taps into an ancient American tradition. To put it another way, she wouldn't have the same impact if she came from Alabama or Ohio. Her westernness, the sense of the frontier, pioneering spirit is a significant, telling, part of her appeal.

On the one hand, she represents the pioneering spirit that built the United States in the first place; on the other there's an element in which, culturally anyway, she represents the common sense integrity of the frontier in contrast to the intrigue and squalor of viperous Washington. That helps explain, I think, why there are plenty of people who won't be too concerned by the reality of her record in Alaska (whatever that may be). A reforming governor taking on corruption is a vastly more powerful story of it's taking place in the west than it would be if it were a governor in, say, New Jersey or Georgia. The idea of the west trumps all other considerations. As the old newspaperman put it, "This is the west sir, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend".

That's also, I think, why it isn't an immediate problem that Palin's speech was, as Ross says, in many ways an orthodox, old-time conservative speech. The style mattered more than the substance. Or rather, the substance was the style. Similarly, it wasn't terribly significant that Obama's speech in Denver was, in policy terms, little more than a laundry list of traditional liberal concerns that could have been given at any point in the past 25 years. Again, it was the style that mattered. 

In Palin's case, of course, none of this offers any guarantee that she'd be a competent Vice-President, but it helps explain why she's a powerful candidate. She's the cowgirl-turned-Sheriff whose presence on the ticket taps into one of the oldest, most potent American stories - or, if oyu prefer, myths - of them all. 

Related reading: Virginia on Obama's glamour and Will Wilkinson on Palin.

Comments

[Jim]

If you find me a governor who can clean up the corruption in New Jersey, I'll show you someone who's a whole lot tougher than Palin. The Northeast has its legends, too - Rudy Giuliani got a long way on his image of being mean enough to handle New York.

[Jim]

Any idea why my comments appear twice? I apologize for it, but I don't know why it's happening.

[Anthony]

On the moose hunting issue, I don't really see the exoticism of it. On this side of the pond we're meant to be softer and Euroweenier than even the bluest of blue state Americans, but since Governor Palin got put on the ticket, everyone with whom I've talked about it has expressed a willingness to eat moose burger, were it readily available.* I think most people I know outside of central London would be fairly "sports-casual" about the issue of shooting the moose itself, too.

I suppose the response to that would be a standard issue quip about British food...

*"Why not, it's just an uglier version of Bambi, isn't it?"

[KateC]

I think the idea of someone who stocks the chest freezer with meat they shot themselves is pretty exotic to most of America. I grew up on a cattle ranch and we had a locker at the local locker plant where we stored our beef, slaughtered after round-up. We also ate deer and elk my father hunted. I hate venison.

Palin's support for wolf hunting has also gotten some riled up, but she's in favor of it, so Alaskans and esp. Alaskan natives can take advantage of hunting season and stock up on food.

[Foose]

Check out the Debbie Reynolds' movie, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" for a cultural touchstone on Palin's appeal ...

[JMHawkins]

I think most people I know outside of central London would be fairly "sports-casual" about the issue of shooting the moose itself, too.

Anthony, shooting the moose is the easy part! Then you have to carve it up (field dress it) and pack it out. Yourself. BigGameHunt.net has a primer for moose hunting. It says:

It is the law in most states that you must pack out all the meat you harvest and in the case of a moose, it's hundreds and hundreds of pounds. The penalties & fines are stiff for wanton waste of a game animals so make sure nothing is left in the woods as prescribed by local law. In Alaska, it is also illegal for you to hire someone other than a state licensed guide to pack the meat out for you, you cannot hire the kid down the road to do this. Again, the fines are stiff and it's not something to take lightly!

After shooting it, you have to carve up and pack 500 to 700 lbs of meat (and another 50 lbs of antlers) out on your back. Through some of the more rugged wilderness around. So, after all that exercise, I think mooseburgers could be considered a health food.