Governor Palin and Destroying the False Narratives

by Whitney Pitcher

The recent release of Governor Palin’s emails during her first year and a half in office have destroyed the media-created narratives of  her supposed lack of intelligence, unseriousness, and vindictiveness. However, another narrative continues to circulate– Governor Palin should not run for President.  There’s not room for two women in the race, as if women in presidential politics are like a grocery store coupon–limit one per election–the narrative says. The narrative ties into her electability and supposed extremism, as the media ignores polls that show Governor Palin leads or is with in the margin of error in nationally for the GOP nomination and is shown to represent the views of Republicans better than any other candidate or potential candidate. The narrative states that potential candidates with very little name recognition and little grassroots support are more than able to jump into the race this summer, but  it’s too late for Governor Palin, even though she has higher favorability numbers than most of candidates have name recognition numbers. “She cannot win”, says the Establishment and the media, yet if that were true, they would be all to willing  to let her run and lose. Despite all of these reasons to the contrary, the narrative continues to propagate across the media and Establishment.

In 1964, Margaret Chase Smith, a moderate Republican Senator from Maine, became the first woman to run for the presidential nomination of one of the two major parties.  As it is with Governor Palin, Smith also had to overcome false narratives regarding her potential candidacy, namely the narrative that a woman could not withstand the rigors of running for President. The following video is from the New Agenda--a group that strives to support and defend all women across the professional and political spectrum. This video does an excellent job of highlighting the history of women who have achieved the highest position of political leadership in their respective countries, as well as highlighting the history of women in American presidential politics. I encourage you to watch the entire clip, but  I do want to draw attention in particular to a brief section in this video which contains the audio of Smith’s presidential announcement (starting at about the 5:40 mark):

Here is the text of that section of the clip:

It is contended that as a woman, I would not have the physical stamina and strength to run. So because of these very impelling reasons against my running, I have decided that I shall.

Especially for anti-Establishment candidates, there will always be false narratives to destroy. Governor Palin’s decision to run for the presidency will ultimately be made by prayerful consideration by her and her family. Should she choose to run, she will have destroyed yet another false narrative, which is nothing new for a woman who has made a political career of beating the  odds and destroying false narratives.