Whether they are women, minorities, people with handicaps, or the elderly, tokens are often treated as symbols or representatives of the marginal social group to which they belong. As a result, their thoughts, beliefs, and actions are likely to be taken as typical of all in their social group.

Link

To describe tokens more succinctly, they are the "firsts."

Newsflash to Conasen and others throwing around the work token to describe Palin:

Before I am attacked for this statement, I am NOT in any way, shape, or form a McCain/Palin supporter because he and she are wrong on the issues.

and that

John Kerry should be very careful talking to womene about Hillary Clinton after the things he said about her before.

Go with the tokenism and experience attacks, and you are flirting with problems.

For some reasons, some are insistent on arguing about experience and tokenisms instead of reminding that Bush/Palin are running for a Bush Third Term.

I do not understand it.

We have a serious disagreement on tactics here Jeralyn and I hope that you do not see disagreeing with you as an insult. But if you do, let me know. Because if you keep supporting what I see as a bad tactic, I will keep writing that it is a failed tactic.

Not all Hillary supporters were liberals. Some are very moderate, and many of these moderates are working class. These are the people that will find the addition of Palin to the ticket appealing, and it will not just be women.

The real story, that Palin has some legitimate working class cred, is being conveniently ignored by Dems. Palin's roots are at least as groundbreaking as her gender considering our current political climate in which candidates reduce themselves to arguing who is less rich.

It seems to me that it is Democrats that are guilty of reducing Palin to a vagina, as illustrated by Kerry and Conasen. Palin brings much more to the ticket than her gender, which is conveniently being ignored.

Shoring up evangelicals
Gun voters
Unions (her husband)
Working class
Native Americans (her husband)
Washington outsider
Reputation for taking on her own party
Rep for fiscal responsibility

"....how stupid do they think the Clinton supporters are, for Heaven sakes?"

What makes me even like her more is that the smell of the Democratic/Left misogyny scent is back in the air....it smells really bad and I can't vote for it.

Sorry, she'll make a great Rolling Stone Mag cover and I saw on the Sunday shows the contempt the establishment already has for her.  This plays right into the Rove playbook...our encircled Christian minority fighting the good fight, etc.  This will bring them out "en masse".

About being the POTUS when JM passes, I thought we were a government run by citizens, not professional hacks?  

"He has the ability to help us bridge the divide of religious extremism," Kerry said. "To maybe even give power to moderate Islam to be able to stand up against this radical misinterpretation of a legitimate religion."

Kerry was asked what gives Obama that credibility.

"Because he's African-American. Because he's a black man. Who has come from a place of oppression and repression through the years in our own country."

I could care less wiether the VP was a women or a man... with those views... I wouldn't like the pick!

Now the Republicans have a good shot at electing the first woman as VP. Palin has a very thin record but she is seen as a reformer and she's a young, fresh face at a time when people are looking for something completely new. It's quite a gamble and a trait I find troubling in McCain. Bombing another country is a huge gamble and McCain is not shy about tossing the dice.

That's power.

McCain turned the conversation from Obama and his exuberant coronation to issues of sexism, experience and tokenism with one single choice, and he did it while Obama should have been basking in his moment of glory.

I agree with BTD on this one. The Dems lose if they attack her on the inexperience and gender issues. It keeps all the anger from the primary alive and feeds the divisiveness Obama's team created to win the primary.

If Obama wants to win the election, he needs to reach out to us, the base of the Democratic Party. Remember us? and he needs to make amends to Hillary supporters and especially women.

While the Obama campaign released a statement Friday saying that Obama and running mate Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) hailed the pick, the internal talking points memo distributed to surrogates made it clear that Democrats plan to portray Palin as inexperienced and a politically expedient pick for McCain to mollify hardcore conservatives in his party.

The GOP has been treading very gingerly around the Clinton/Obama discord. They have not gotten into the dirt yet. They will. Were the Clinton's deliberately and unfairly painted as racists or employing racists tactics? There is so much documented material on this that I can't imagine the GOP not going there.

Obama hit both Clinton's below the belt with a sledgehammer and then got them to throw their full-throated support his way. After all, its only politics.

In following the dispute this is what I got: After Palin refused to introduce two recently-failed abortion restricting bills to a special session on a natural gas pipeline, she expressed "willingness" to bring the legislation to separate sessions.
The article said:

'Senate President Lyda Green called on Palin to incorporate the two bills into the pipeline special session after the bills failed to pass the House.'

'"These issues are so important they shouldn't be diluted with oil and gas deliberations," added Palin.'

'the possibility of a separate session'

'show a path to success first.'

  In other words, she did not seem ultra bent on making them happen but was willing to 'support' such bills if there was,  first, evidence they'd be successful, meaning they'd have the support of enough people.

This is what has been so depressing -- on nearly every liberal blog!

Even John Kerry focuses on the issues.

Feminism isn't about trashing women like Palin and falling into the right-wing language talking traps ABOUT WOMEN. It also doesn't sound too terrific - coming from Democrats - to blather on about "tokenism" because it gives Republicans a delicious "in" to their views of affirmative action. Get it???

The other piece that really, really bothers me about what the liberal blogs are doing is this: they're acting like women don't get it; like we're a monolithic group of uteruses; like we have to be "told" how to vote, who to support/not support. It's especially galling to women like me (and others I know) who lack the platform (blog, etc.) and who don't have the second and third degrees to read post after post after post about how "bad" this is for women.

It's what I have always hated about knee-jerk liberals: you can say the right stuff when it's in your own family/hood, but boy, when it hits a nerve from somebody else, you just peel back the cover to see yet another anti-feminist talking-point, strategy.

The GOP settled on Palin because their other token strategy of using Lieberman to capture the Jewish vote wasn't panning out.  They're desperate.  Obviously Palin won't help much with disaffected Hillary supporters because most of them are left wing and many are feminists.  They'll see Palin for what she is, which is no comparison to Hillary.  Her ridiculous resume completely eviscerates McSame's claim that our candidate isn't experienced enough to be President.  The GOP has made a gross miscalculation assuming feminists want a woman for Prez regardless of her experience and credentials.  What feminists really want is a level playing field.  

When the right wing said "Only Nixon could go to China," they meant that Nixon's anti-communist credentials were strong enough to avoid being labeled a "pinko" for meeting with communists.  Most Democrats would not have gotten away with it.  Since that time, the right wing has developed a disingenuous practice of appointing figurehead women and minorities who are willing to sell out their constituencies.  Thus, we have SC Justice Clarence Thomas making activist-judicial decisions against blacks without being accused of racism.  Ohio's Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell disenfranchised tens of thousands of black voters in 2004.  Sarah Palin is simply another Republican who will sell out women.

What Palin brings to the ticket is money, energy and down-ticket votes.  She reenergizes their lunatic base.  She'll get gun voters on board and rope in working class voters that weren't connecting with McCain's rich wife and life.  Most importantly, she will inspire Republican women to work for McCain. Women's free labor is what has always carried parties, and the GOP has been hurting without them.  

Well, Mr. Biden, you've been in Washington since I was six years old, and how has that worked out for the rest of us Americans?

Cynical
Ploy
Insulting
Gimmick
Laughable
Unserious
Strange