When I was a kid there was a thing called a "home permanent*." It was a hair treatment that made your hair curly (horrifying to girls like me who ironed their hair and wrapped it around orange juice can sized rollers [or real orange juice cans] to keep it straight.) One of the most visible products was called Toni Home Permanents and its ad campaign was at least as popular as a great Saturday Night Live catch phrase.
Yup. It asked "Which twin has the Toni?" That’s a photo of the print version on the left. The idea was that one twin had a fancy salon permanent and one curled hers at home with Toni, but you couldn’t tell the difference. Of course, any kid who ever had a sleepover at the home of a friend who’d just done a "home permanent" knows that the chemical smell was gross (and if I remember correctly you couldn’t wash you hair for a couple of days) and their hair was often substantially more dry and brittle than the "salon permanent" girls’. In fact, there was a difference.
Every time I see Tina Fey being Sarah Palin I’m reminded of that. The McCain-Palin campaign is asking us to believe that when you spend upscale salon money it’s mostly for snob appeal, because all you need is a Toni and your bathroom sink, and you’re just as gorgeous. In this context though, the comparison is different — and ironic. If you saw Chevy Chase being Gerald Ford or Phil Hartman as Ronald Reagan or Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton, the impressions were great, but you always knew that the real guy was smarter, and more serious, than the comedian. No trouble knowing which "twin" was which. But with Tina and Sarah, it’s reversed. The brains, and the class, go to the comic, not the politician. The girlfriend of a young friend, asked if she was jealous about another woman in his circle, responded that she’d only worry "if he was hanging around with Tina Fey." Her intelligence, class and charm are that attractive. It’s pretty clear that she’s smarter and probably knows more about what’s going on in the world than The Candidate and, for many of us, appears better equipped to serve as Vice President. Many conservative pundits seem to agree. And many Alaskans. And liberals. Several posts, and tweets, from strong progressives, have described a "cringing" sense of discomfort when watching her stumble.
So what thoughts, and emotions, do we bring to this spectacle tonight? What do we, who support her opponents, consider as we watch alone, or with like-minded friends at debate-parties or with tweeters on #Debate08? From here, it’s complicated. Angry at her searing convention speech, but sad to see her stumble so pitifully in the Couric interview; fearful of what could happen if she and McCain win, furious that she’s trying to stall the Alaska report about her alleged abuses of power, and, in my case at least, completely detached from the fact that this woefully inadequate candidate happens to be female, we hope the battle is fought on competence and capacity, not gender and one-liners. Mostly, we’re aware that the copy is far superior to the original, and that the smart, attractive version of the candidate isn’t the one who’s going to be there tonight.
*I just looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently there still are things called home permanents but who uses them?? No clue.
You just jumped into my brain and ran around a bit. First of all, Biden would need to be on his “A game” if he were up against Tina Fey. You are SO right about the copy being better than the original. Second of all, I think whats been making me so uncomfortable is that the more we realize how horribly unqualified for VP she is, the more we realize how insane McCain is. So I keep hoping for some sign that she really COULD handle it if she suddenly found herself running our country. Because, even if BO is doing ok right now, after the last election we had ANYTHING could happen. She just plain scares me. Every stumble, every “I’ll get back to ya”, every vacant stare… she just scares me.
Oy I remember the home permanents!! What a flashback.
You nail the analogy, thanks. Enjoy the debate tonight!!
I was talking to some coworkers about our current president about a year ago. We were discussing how disturbing it was that, after 7 years of watching this guy work, we all genuinely felt we’d make better a president than W.
This isn’t meant to be a statement of arrogance, more a statement of disillusionment with our current commander-in-chief. What freaks me out about Palin is that it only took a month to come to the same conclusion about her.
My fear is that expectations for this debate are so low that if Ms. Palin manages to string together a couple of coherent sentences, she looks like a winner. And as long as she doesn’t get asked follow-up questions, her talking points might look like real answers on TV. Hopefully Biden will still bring his A-Game, just in case.
Great post. And you couldn’t be more right about Tina Fey and Sarah Palin. I agree Dan in his comment above. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long for America to see just how wrong Sarah Palin would be for the role of VP.
The Right is already drumming up some crap about it being ok that she is stupid, Joe Six-pack like and if she messes up tonight. Check it out.
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7337
Well, Sarah answered very few of the questions and the moderator rarely called her on it. She looked straight at the camera and splightly delivered her lines. As celebrity and reality TV are so much a part of everyone’s life right now, I’d say she gained some ground as ‘the girl next door makes good.’ As if that was a qualification to lead one of the most powerful nations on earth. Heaven help our country and the world if the Democrats don’t take this election. More than scary.
Ah… yes. The Toni ads. Do I ever remember those. And, I can’t tell you how many nights I spent trying to sleep on orange juice cans. It’s funny that a girl in Texas and 1 “up North” would be doing the same thing to themselves while they sleep! My thoughts exactly re: Tina Fey. And I loved the way you wrote about the entire complexity of the character called, “Sarah Palin”. I have a feeling this one won’t go away even if she loses this one.