Sarah Palin and the Rise of the Playboy Electorate?

What is the enduring legacy of Sarah Palin for men after the 2008 presidential elections? It seems like a reasonable question to ask, given how important men were to the success of Palin.

According to CNN, more men than women believed that the Alaska governor was qualified to be president, and more men than women felt like questions raised about the governor's experiences were unfair. In fact, contrary to the enormous media attention directed at Palin's likely impact on women voters -- what became commonly referred to as the "Palin Effect" -- we now know that it was the positive reaction among men within the electorate that drove the governor's initial popularity and propelled her to the superstar status that she enjoys today!

The truth is that Palin owes a lot to men. Men influenced her message, her method and certainly how she was marketed to the American public.

However, if you follow the media's continuing coverage of Palin -- which it is almost impossible not to, considering the legions of articles that are still being written about her -- you probably would not know anything about how men’s reactions to her signal important demographic and cultural changes occurring in men's lives.

More importantly, if you listen to the "conventional wisdom" about why men responded so favorably to the hockey mom, you would not have any idea why American men's reactions to the first female Republican vice presidential nominee may set a dangerous precedent for how men may evaluate other female presidential candidates in the future.

Why?

Because in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 presidential elections, commentators across the political spectrum have examined everything about Palin -- from her impact on the modern women's movement and feminism, to the realities of parenting a special-needs child -- but they have said virtually nothing about her impact on the male electorate.

Today, references to Joe the Plumber and Joe Six-Pack -- the ubiquitous metaphors for working-class men -- have become more of a joke, rather than an occasion for political pundits to explore questions like:

1. Why were Palin and New York’s Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton -- despite all the substantive and stylistic differences between the two candidates -- more successful among blue-collar men than they were with white-collar men?
2. How important will male reactions to the "gender card" be in determining future elections, considering that the nation has finally overcome the "race card" with the election of the first African American president?
3. Was Palin's appeal among social conservatives driven by the hidden meanings of Todd Palin, and the tacit belief in the "man as head of household" rule that is so fundamental to religious conservatism?

Answers to questions like these may be important if we have witnessed a "tipping point" where female presidential candidates will be more of the norm rather than the exception in future elections.

There are two explanations for why there has been such a complete lack of interest in what Sarah Palin has meant to the "male vote" in this past presidential election. Both explanations have their roots in trends that emerged during the elections.

First, there was a tendency during the elections to attribute any positive reactions from men to Palin's physical attraction, what some commentators later referred to as the MILF phenomenon.

According to this point of view, Palin was nothing more than "political eye candy" to men. Men were considered "under the spell" of her physical beauty, and/or having such a political hard-on for this mother of five and former beauty contestant, that they lost any ability to be critical of her as a political candidate -- a sentiment captured by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, whose comment, "Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you," allegedly earned him a fatwa, in his native land.