My new biggest nightmare as a PR person: defending a charge that a client (say, just as a for instance, a VP candidate) pretended to have a baby that was actually her teenage daughter's by pointing out that said daughter couldn't possibly be the mother, becase by the time the baby was born, she was pregnant with a baby of her own. Yikes.
So, if you should ever find yourself having to data dump some really bad news, try to do it just as a hurricane's making landfall. That should provide you with at least some cover. Next, shake your finger at the "liberal blogosphere" that forced you into disclosing what you would have had to disclose anyway - that's the thing about pregnant women, they don't get any smaller.
Seriously, I think the Palin and McCain folks handled this as well as they posibly could have under the circumstances. They're going to piss me off sometime in the next few days, attacking anyone who brings up the obvious irony of an abstinence-only governor becoming a grandma at age 44, or what McCain's, um, interesting decision-making process might indicate about the kind of person he is. But we'll see how it goes.
I also want to watch how the Democrats handle it. Someone has already asked Obama to comment, and he said in no uncertain terms that candidate's kids are off-limits. (He also reminded the press that his mother had him when she was 18.) His campaign really shouldn't say anything other than that. (The aforementioned "liberal blogosphere" is already doing that for him.)
Other thoughts...
- Gov. Palin obviously knew that her daughter was pregnant when she accepted McCain's nomination. She had to know that the spotlight was going to hit her family pretty hard. In fact, she's already used her family to score political points (son with Down syndrome, other son going to Iraq, etc.). Isn't dealing with an unplanned pregnancy hard enough on a family without the added drama?
- The "WTF was McCain thinking?" factor just grows more every day. I still can't decide if I believe him when he says he knew all about the pregnancy and picked her anyway.
- Did you watch any of the Sunday talk shows, where much of the focus was on McCain-Palin and the upcoming convention? Some of the talking points were a little straw-graspy. To wit: Cindy McCain says Palin is so totally ready to take on Vladimir Putin because Alaska is the closest state to Russia. (Juneau's actually only about 20 miles closer to Moscow than Boston.) I can't remember which talking head said Palin's executive experience supervising five children should count. And my favorite sniveling windbag, Lindsey Graham, pointed out to George Stephan-howeverthef*ckyouspellit that, as governer of Alaska, Palin was "commander in chief" of the state's 4,000-strong National Guard. (Which means she manages about as many people as my boss.)
- Another talking point was that Palin may be light on experience, but hey, it's executive experience. I'll buy that an executive (like president or governor) does different stuff than a legislator. But still, if two years as governor, folowing a stint as mayor, wasn't good enough when Karl Rove was talking about Tim Kaine, then why is it okay now? All told, Palin's been in politics for 12 years, going back to her time directing moose-sh*t cleaning crews on the Wasilla City Council. Barack Obama joined the U.S. Senate in January, 2005, after eight years in the Illinois state legislature (which I think has more members than Wasilla has people). My math's a little rusty, help me out here.....?
Let's not forget that Obama made it through some 20 debates against the likes of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd and his own running mate, Joe Biden. He went through 50-some caucuses and primaries, with more than 18 million Americans deciding that they liked what they saw. (Again with the math...that's like, what, 20 times the number of people who even live in Alaska, let alone voted for Gov. Palin?) He's been vetted and, with the exception of a small number of camera-hogging "PUMAs," he's been approved.
- All throughout the day Friday, I could hear little whispers floating above the walls of my cubicle - all the middle-aged and older women who work in my office buzzing because, Did you hear? McCain picked a woman! (Something the Dems did when I was in pre-school. Wanna cookie?) They knew nothing else about her, except that she has a vagina. This makes me both incredibly sad and insanely eager to punch something.
- Speaking of sexism, and getting back to BristolBabyGate...Check out the comments on CNN.com's Ticker post on the news. It really pisses me off how many of them are basically either "She wants to run the country, but she can't run her own household!" or "How's she going to care for a special-needs infant, a pregnant daughter and a grandchild with such a demanding job?" Oh, I dunno...maybe she should ask advice from the GAJILLIONS OF MEN WHO DO IT EVERY DAY. Sorry about that. It's just that those comments - to me - are nicer versions of "Who told that Mommy to get a high-powered job anyway? It's all her fault!" It's 2008, and that idea that raising the kids is still primarily Mom's job, no matter how demanding her job job, is still deeply ingrained.
One final thought........In some bizarro alternate universe, Barack Obama is about to announce that he smoked pot back in the day, his wife got a DUI in 1984 (possibly driving home from a "Geraldine Ferraro Just Broke the Glass Ceiling" celebration party) and now their daughter (humor me) is pregnant, getting married and they're just thrilled to pieces about it. Does Focus on the Family's James Dobson still feel the same way?
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