Palin, Lipstick on a Pygmalian Dream

First The Myth

If you don’t read your Greek mythology, then you may only have heard the name Pygmalian from the George Bernard Shaw play of that name – on which the musical My Fair Lady was based. Thus you may think that Pygmalian is a woman’s name, as I once did. In fact Pygmalian is the name of the King of Cyprus who made an ivory statue of a woman, which he promptly fell in love with.

He muttered sweet words to it, clothed it in robes, put a necklace around its neck and brought it gifts. On the festival of Aphrodite he prayed to the goddess of love that she find a wife for him that was the image of his beautiful ivory maiden. Aphrodite did better than that. When Pygmalian returned home and kissed the ivory statue, it became flesh. Her name was Galatea and she was soon Pygmalian’s wife.

Shaw plagiarizes the myth to tell the story of Henry Higgins, a modern day Pygmalian, who makes a bet that he can transform Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl, into a “lady” capable of impersonating a duchess and fooling the nobility at a social gathering. And of course, Henry Higgins eventually falls in love with the faux duchess.

The joke that Shaw is playing on the audience is the suggestion that merely by teaching someone the right accent and sufficient small talk to get by, you can indeed transform a flower seller into a duchess. You can’t. You are for sure putting lipstick on a pig, and when you do that the pig looks less attractive rather than more attractive. And no-one is fooled.

The Palin Phenomenon

In the US presidential election, John McCain and his the Republican allies have clearly watched the Shaw play and come to believe that the scheme is feasible. Like the original King Pygmalian they had a precise image of what they wanted; an up-and-coming conservative attractive preferably female politician, whose views are strongly aligned with the Republican base and who can be a political presence on the national stage. Unfortunately there was no such individual.

Sarah Palin almost fit the part, except for one big detail. In her ability to handle the media, she is Alaska’s equivalent of a Cockney flower girl. And so some Henry Higgins equivalent steps forward and makes a bet. He says “give me a month or so and I’ll have her handling press conferences better than a seasoned press secretary and she’ll out-debate Joe Biden.”

So they give her one speach to deliver at the Republican convention, which she pulls off rather well, and then they keep her from the press…

But unfortunately the latter day Henry Higgins discovers, after many mock debates and press conferences that you really can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Then the first time they let her face the press alone she blows it – and having blown it, her confidence collapses. She actually starts getting worse, with every press interview, because what little confidence and poise she may have had has disintegrated.

A Toxic Combination

The McCain campaign may well lose this election anyway. The majority of American voters will blame the Republicans rather than the Democrats for the financial crisis and that will likely be decisive. However the combination of a very old candidate with a VP that America has no confidence in, is going to cost votes that McCain can hardly afford to lose. He’s old and if he dies, she’s president. Palin’s presumed incompetence makes McCain’s age an issue and that makes his health an issue too.

The competence of Palin has now become a major talking point and it will remain a talking point until election day unless the McCain campaign ditches her. And for that to happen, she has to walk out into the snow without being told to – otherwise her sacking will become a talking point, and reflect on McCain’s competence.

Right now the odds on Palin withdrawing are getting shorter and shorter…