Sarah Palin As a Female Animal: Pitbull? Grizzly?

The Democrats have a logo: the donkey. The Republicans: the elephant. Is Sarah Palin launching the party of the grizzly? Or rather, the female grizzly…. While it may not yet be connected to the party, there is certainly a continuous propagation of a brand: Hers. In Washington, she has come to speak of HER brand, which must increasingly worry the GOP.

Sarah Palin’s bestiary is recurring. She described herself as a pit bull with incandescent lipstick on the 2008 Republican ticket, and we find her again in Washington as an anti-abortion mama grizzly — invited by the Susan B. Anthony List — haranguing an audience of militants and sponsors devoted to the woman who sells her brand across America and gives her support to the male and female candidates who embody it.

“The mama grizzlies, they rise up.” That day, Sarah Palin invoked feminism. Not that which is practiced by daughters of the east coast, but her own, i.e., the new conservative feminism of women who “carry guns and are against abortion.”* These women, who are daughters of the west, heirs of the pioneers of the beginning of the twentieth century with “dirt under their fingernails, … could shoot a gun and push a plow, and raise a family all at the same time.” She said that her position worries classical feminists shocked by her new national role and the voice it has afforded her. But she is sure of herself and of the profound movement that she embodies: Women who have guts (that’s me translating).

The very, but not exclusively, female audience also included Republican congressmen like Steve King (Iowa), Chris Smith (New Jersey), John Culberson (Texas), convinced but also responsible for legitimizing the discourse of a new movement at the outposts of what Sarah Palin is sure must be the new power structure of the GOP. The GOP that believes itself to be the mainstream will appreciate it.

In the room, there were a few reservations or embarrassments. The chairwoman of the Washington meeting, Janet Abraham, had to conclude by praising the courage and conviction of Sarah Mom Grizzly, non-classical and special politician, and had to be pleased to see her leave the city for South Carolina where she was rushing to support a very promising GOP candidate, Nikki Halley, for the governor’s post. In the last few days she had already supported Carly Fiorina for the Senate primary in California. Like Ducros, she goes to a lot of trouble and not always where she is expected.

This is what happened in the Ronald Reagan Building; it is funny to think what this event must have evoked for Nancy Reagan and Cindy McCain, not exactly harpies of feminism. Even the figure of Margaret Thatcher, Sarah Palin’s model, as a woman who simultaneously led all the aspects of her life, merits a slightly deeper examination.

The omnipresence of Sarah Palin on the political scene and her proclaimed activism give her a share of voice that increasingly irrigates the political discourse. Washington’s autism towards her, her media presence and the role she gives herself in sponsoring male and female candidates who “go back” to her should lead the heads of her party to come forward fast or to rework their logo. It is not easy to fit an elephant and a grizzly on one logo. As for the offspring, one dares not think about it.

Editor’s Note: The original quote, accurately translated, has not been verified.