However, playing the devil’s advocate, let us say that Palin is out for the time being.  We still have Michele Bachmann and a host of other attractive and qualified conservative women who can run (an explanation for why “looks” are important will be forthcoming.)  If Hillary runs, we will lose with Mitt Romney.  We have to run a woman if the Dems do in order to take away what Warrior has coined “the novelty coup factor.”  Look, a barely qualified black guy beat a much experienced, respected and revered war hero simply so Brian Williams et al. could holla about the “Historicity” of electing the first black prez.  It will just be a repeat with the first woman prez if we do not counter.  The only reason some blacks voted was to bring a black guy into office.  So will it be for the first woman president. 

Now, yours truly claims no expertise on the handicapping of national electoral politics.  I do know it is an art as well as a science.  The zeitgeist plays as much a part as poll numbers, demographic studies, and voter trends.  But, as mentioned in Palin or Bachmann, Vol. I, several critics have put me off my Sarah feed for a while, anyway.  They often cite the Dem primaries in ’08 as instructive of how gender is not relevant, since a black guy beat a woman in that mash up.  However, the ’08 primary encounter was a totally different animal.

First, Hillary had Bill Clinton baggage.  Second, in the oppression/grievance sweepstakes, blacks are (or were) number one.  Now that that particular fire has been doused briefly, women are the next protected class to demand their representation (and who can blame them?)  If the Dems run a woman and we run a man of any race, we will lose, period.  And if we do not beat them to the punch and chose a woman AFTER they do, they will simply call our candidate a token or Jenny-come-lately- chosen only for her plumbing.

As mentioned, we have a parade of attractive conservative women available, starting with Michele Bachmann.  One must wonder why attractive conservative women are so threatening to the left.  The lamestream media vilifies everybody from Sarah Palin to Christine O’Donnell to Ann Coulter to S.E. Cupp.  Why are looks so important to the Dems?  To begin with, one of their major constituencies is the MTV crowd, i.e. the youth vote.  But beyond that, psychologically and historically, it goes deep into who they present, and actually believe, themselves to be.  Also, starting with the Nixon/Kennedy debates, they have realized and traded on the power of visual appeal.  Camelot is not an enduring leftwing delusion for nothing.

Basically, it’s sex appeal, but not in the traditional, cheesecake kind of way.  With the Dems, it is part and parcel of their whole philosophy.  “Look at us,” they say, “we are newer, younger, prettier.  Our IDEAS, therefore, are new, fresh and exciting.  We are the party of the future, the new kid in town, the fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”  Or, as “O” the Oracle once put it, “We are the change we’ve been waiting for.”  This is the Obama girl cheer.  This is why they are never held responsible for the enduring mess they’ve made of this country. 

(Just think about it.  Almost every problem with which we are now dealing as a national polity began as a great new idea from the left.  Social Security?  We are now drowning in debt because of it.  The Great Society?  We now have a veritable army of gubmint dependents and fatherless children.  Medicare/Medicaid?  It has skewed the marketplace provision of healthcare to the point that another charlatan from the left now wants to make it systemic as well as endemic with the snake oil of “Obamacare.”  HA!  The whole problem began with gubmint interference in that field.  And we have not even begun to discuss the moral hazards involved, the law of unintended consequences, the vast expansion of gubmint intrusion, power, corruption, etc.  However, I digress, that’s for another diary…)

And this is why ANY conservative woman, especially an attractive one, will be anathema to the left and why they will stop at nothing short of assassination to stop her — whomever she may turn out eventually to be.  And this is also one of the main reasons why, with John McCain mechanically labeling everyone in sight with the robotic, inauthentic, almost comical if not so scary “My friend,” we lost the presidency in ’08.  Yes, I know there were other reasons.  However, even for an election coming immediately after the two-term presidency of another Republican, and even with McCain failing to mention Obama’s close association with racists, communists and felons, it was still a mighty close call.