Does Gender Matter in Evaluating Palin?

by tremayne [courtesy of Open Left - Front Page]

Here's a theme that is evident in the comments on all the Palin posts today: We should keep our criticism of Palin on issues not on personal characteristics and certainly not on gender.  

This seems clearly right at first but then there's this from conservative pundit Ramesh Ponnuru:  

Tokenism. Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?

No, I can't say that with a straight face. Even Dan Quayle had 12 years in Congress and nearly 2 as a Senator before his selection. And the first woman selected (24 years ago!), Geraldine Ferraro, had 6 years in Congress. Both Quayle and Ferraro held law degrees.

Imagine if McCain had selected a man in his 40s, Governor of a state with a smallish population who.....oh wait we don't have to imagine this, McCain had someone just like this on his short list and he was rejected as being too much of a lightweight: Tim Pawlenty. Let's compare Pawlenty to Palin and see if gender played a role in this selection.

Sarah Palin             Tim Pawlenty

Alaska                     Minnesota

Pop: <1 million       More than 5 million

Gov. for 1.6 yrs       Gov. for 5.6 years

Prior: mayor           10 yrs State leg. including Majority Leader

Pro-Life                  Pro-Life

In addition to this, while Palin has no foreign policy experience and has admitted (recently) to not having thought much about the Iraq war, Pawlenty has travelled extensively throughout the world and met with foreign leaders as part of trade missions for Minnesota.

But the main knock on Pawlenty was that he would eliminate the criticism of Obama being too young and inexperienced. There was also some concern that Joe Biden would make him look bad in debates.

So, you think gender was a factor? Gender was the main factor. If it was just one factor then it would be defensible. Heck, as Adam Bink points out in the post below there are many Democrats who favored Hillary Clinton in part because of the importance, both symbolicly and substantively, of having a woman in that role. And there are many Democrats who factor in Barack Obama's race as another reason for supporting him. And earlier today Will pointed out that progressives have helped move the goalposts to make such a pick even possible for the GOP. But if gender is your primary reason for selecting someone, shouldn't you be asked to defend that? Especially if the person seems an otherwise dubious choice for the job and there are many other women who would be reasonable choices?

Now I agree that attacking Palin directly on this is tricky business. But it seems a fair question to ask McCain, especially in light of his earlier comments about Obama's inexperience and the need for a VP who is ready on day one. This is another McCain flip-flop and he should be called on it.