Sarah Palin presents a different psychological portrait. We can put aside the pit bull and the lipstick. She's comfortable balancing femininity and toughness. We hear jokes about her hunting and fishing prowess, as though she had been nursed on the milk of wolves, like Romulus and Remus. She actually did learn to shoot a gun at age 8. Her father tells how nearly all the game and fish on the family dinner table was shot or caught by the family.
Palin doesn't have to cultivate her femininity or demonstrate toughness by chasing a shot of Crown Royal with a mug of Old Styles. She's not one of the boys, but knows how to take them on. She's more like Annie Oakley, who likes "doin' what comes naturally."
Hillary never looked as comfortable in her skin as she did when, after she lost to Barack Obama, she delivered a forceful endorsement of the man who defeated her at the Democratic National Convention. Just as "Mourning becomes Electra," losing becomes Hillary. The unexpected grace may bring her back for another round in four years. If a President McCain for whatever reasons defers to others in 2012, we can look forward to a doozy of a debate between Hillary and Sarah. We got a preview on "Saturday Night Live" of what to expect:
Tina Fey as Sarah and Amy Poehler as Hillary face off, with Sarah striking beauty poses and telling how men find her a "babe" and Hillary, fuming, complaining that when she ran she was called a "harpie."
Fey as Palin: "I think women everywhere can agree, that no matter your politics, it's time for a woman to make it to the White House."
Here's Poehler as Hillary: " No. I didn't want a woman to be president. I wanted to be president, and I just happen to be a woman. And I don't want to hear you compare your road to the White House to my road to the White House. I scratched and clawed through mud and barbed wire, and you just glided in on a dog sled wearing your pageant sash and your Tina Fey glasses."
Welcome, NOW, to the third stage of feminism.