The relatable factor

It has been said of Sarah Palin that women relate to her.  She is pretty, strong, and hard headed.  She has a lot of qualities that we’d like our mom’s to have, and that we would like to be ourselves: confident, sure of our words, and unapologetic for our beliefs and public behaviors.   She is a wife, a mother with five children and a job. 

Hilary Clinton only had one child and her life was her work.  They have made very different choices, and very different perceptions by the pubic. 

Working moms, the media would have us believe, relate with a mom who shoots wolves from a helicopter and risks our child’s health by flying eight hours across the country after our water broke.  Maybe she is more relatable and personable than Hilary.

Unfair standards

She is being judged by perhaps unfair standards, as any woman running for public office still is today.  She is expected to as the song says “bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan” and still look gorgeous in the process.  She does all of that.  And she isn’t afraid to stand up for what she believes in either.

I think it is less that we relate with her than that we would like to be like her.  Hilary seemed so severe and took the second seat next to her oh-so-charming husband.  How many of us even know what Palin’s husband looks like? We like the idea that we could be all of those things and still be liked.  Hilary Clinton struggled to do all of those things and still be liked.  A lot of people ended up liking her, but it didn’t come easily to her. She never was gorgeous and a super mom in the way of Sarah Palin.

Good guys and bad guys

When we are in our usual mode of trying to decide who is the “good guy” and who is the “bad guy” it’s easy to confuse likable with “good”.  It’s easy to confuse “like me” with “good” and “not like me” with “bad”.  We all feel more comfortable with these easy categories.  When we can sort people out by simple categories and selecting “good” and “bad” based on them.  Funny thing is, I can understand this because it is how our brains work.  But that doesn’t make for rational judgments based on the things that really matter.

The cute guy in class

I remember when I was a teen falling for the cutest guy in my class.  He was funny, personable and had the best bone structure.  I flushed every time he came near and longed for his attention.  My entire perception of his desirability was based on how he appeared.  He was in the “good” category.  He ended up dropping out from ninth grade and spending, last I heard, five years in the federal penitentiary for drug dealing. 

Choosing with a different part of our brain

While our primitive survival instincts will have us pick and sort based on these simple groupings… they don’t really help us in our modern world.  Choosing a candidate for President of these United States must be done based on something beyond are they “like me” or not.  Granted that is our instinct. But should instincts prevail in our choices? Or should we pick based on something out of our more evolved, cognitive mind?

Being able to choose to do anything based on our more evolved, higher brain functions seems imperative to me as a human being, and even more so as a citizen of a free country with a right to vote.  We have a responsibility to use our choices wisely and with our more evolved brain.  It changes everything.

How it seems to me

We must pick our candidate based on what they show us about what they are capable of doing and being, not just whether they are perceived as being a “good guy” “like me” or not. 

What do you think?

Should we vote based on or emotional reactions? Are these valid points or am I off base? Let me know. Comment below.