The announcement of the pregnancy of an unwed 17-year old in the family of a dark horse vice presidential candidate chosen by the conservative Republican wild card maverick to be his running mate was made the day after the rousing Democratic Convention in the tailwinds of the globally rousing 2008 Olympics in China. The context of the announcement of the pregnancy was in the form of a cherished situation. New life was welcomed into the world with all the trappings for a successful future, including a marriage of the parents.
The father and groom-to-be appeared at the Republican convention with the vice-presidential candidate's family. The loaded question of teen pregnancies and shotgun weddings remained in cyberspace, the location to which the fast-paced world of modern technology relegates all the shocking influx of novelty today with no time to reflect on one blow to suppositions before a new twist grabs attention. Going back to basics restores perspective.
The daughter of the Republican vice-presidential candidate is getting married. At 17, it is unlikely she'd be getting married if she was not pregnant. Unless the Palin parents are unusually liberal at the personal level while ultra conservative at the public, it can be assumed they were less than thrilled to hear their unwed 17-year-old daughter was pregnant. Alternatively, they could be avid to continue the family line, meaning they were willing to let early motherhood prevent their daughter from engaging in challenges such as competing for the title of Miss America as her mother did.
Regardless of speculations about Palin family dynamics, the development of a teenage pregnancy in the Palin family has been pitched as an empathic element that connects the candidate with any American family on the premise that families have to deal with mistakes young people make. A cornerstone of social progress is the caveat that mistakes are not the sealers of fate. A juvenile misdemeanor does not have to hound a young miscreant throughout adult life and a teenage hormonal impulse indulged without an informed weighing of consequence does not have to shackle a young person to a life-mate who may be unsuitable.
The Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin stands in stark contrast to such progress. Lipstick as her unofficial symbol in the presidential campaign suggests an emblem of a woman's role as adornment in a world run by the status quo of white men and women who like stereotypes of the past to be the pace-setters of the future.
A woman identified with lipstick as the person to be a heartbeat from the presidency of the United States is a farce when the country is in an economic crisis unseen since the great depression and the urgency to correct the situation is at the global level. The question of numerous other women being more suitable remains on a back burner as the country grapples with the shock of the Palin nomination.
That nomination cannot be segregated from the question of her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy and the trotting out of the information in a very public way at the Republican national convention in context of a marriage with the child's father. The young man in question has been scantily exposed as a party-hearty teen with no ambitions to settle down.
Many men have grown up quickly when the stakes were right. The unprecedented circumstances surrounding a Palin family event obviates the traditional taboo against public interest in candidate families. In the 2008 US presidential election, voters have a right to know where a Palin family wedding stands in relation to the election. A candidate's integrity is at stake, as are the implications of her policies.
Helen Fogarassy is a New York based internationalist writer who has worked on a contract basis with the United Nations for nearly 20 years. She is the author of a suspense novel, The Midas Maze, about murderous hijinks in UN/US relations. She is also the author of The Light of a Destiny Dark, a novel about the Euro-American cultural gap through Hungarian eyes, and a nonfiction eyewitness tribute to the UN's work, Mission Improbable: The World Community on a UN Compound in Somalia. All are available on the major web bookstore sites.
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