Sep
15
Was Sarah Palin a good PR move?
September 15, 2008 | Tagged Auburn, Palin, student | Leave a Comment
There have been several controversies surrounding Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate. Over the past couple of weeks we have heard stories about Sarah Palin’s stand against abortion, her baby with Down’s syndrome, her daughters teenage pregnancy, her beauty pageant days, her soccer mom standing, the fact that she is not qualified enough for the job, and even her fashion sense.
The point of this blog is not to say if she is the best person for the job; the point is actually to say how this was a good public relations move for John McCain.
Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton were going head to head during the presidential primaries. It looked like, for a while, that Clinton was going to beat Obama. Because Clinton was a woman, she had many female voters rooting for her. The battle between Obama and Clinton was long and filled with many unnecessary remarks. This caused tension between Obama voters and Clinton voters.
We all know that Clinton lost to Obama, leaving her voters up in the air about whom they wanted to vote for. McCain held no special place for them but they did not want to vote for Obama, who ruined a woman’s chances of being president.
Both Obama and Clinton tried to get the democratic vote up at the Democratic National Convention. After months and months of name-calling and debates, both put on good public relations faces and said great things about the other. The first thing Obama said during his speech, at the convention, was about how great Hillary Clinton was.
No one could have guessed that a week later McCain would announce that the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, would be his vice presidential running mate.
At first no one knew much of anything about her. Then the facts started pouring in about beauty pageants, teen pregnancy and her own baby.
I remember right after Palin was announced to be McCain’s running mate, a friend of mine went on and on about what a stupid move this was for McCain and how Palin has no experience, etc. I thought about what he said and could not help but think how wrong he was about it being a stupid move.
McCain will now get many of the votes that Hillary would have gotten. There are plenty of female voters out there who do not care if a democrat or republican is so high up in the White House, they just want a women to be there. Also, since Sarah Palin is seen as the “soccer mom”, this will appeal to many females as well. America now sees Sarah Palin as a down to earth woman who works hard to keep food in her families mouth. This is something that almost anyone can relate to. I also think that some men will vote for her just on the looks basis.
The fact the Sarah Palin, is not as experienced as some people in politics really does not hurt her image. I think this actually strengthens it. When it comes down to it, John McCain did a very smart public relations move by choosing Palin as his running mate.