Sarah Palin’s qualifications for the second most powerful position in the land have nothing to do with her experience (or her lack of it) or the fact that she doesn’t know about the Bush doctrine. Indeed it has nothing to do with the realization that she never met a foreign leader until she visited the UN recently. It has everything to do with the tale she tells and the image she presents. Palin is a consummate performer who asserts her identity perfectly in her hairstyle, her eager grin, her wink, and the way her family—and even McCain himself–become props on her stage. While McCain is faltering, Palin is busy rebranding the Republican Party.

Palin was immediately recognizable to the American people as soon as she appeared at the Republican Convention. For the guys, Palin positioned herself as their high school sweetheart they shouldn’t have let get away. For the gals, Palin became the pal you have fun with on a girls’ night out. Even though she comes from Alaska Palin really emerges from the country’s fictional landscape. She is the mythic pioneer woman who will stop at nothing to protect her family–she can shoot better than any of the guys but still doesn’t mind being asked to dance when she puts on a frilly frock for the local dance. Palin is a creature of the legendary border region; she comes from the far reaches of our national psyche, and she blurs the distinction between a carefully crafted persona and an authentic person. She may be an unique and unlikely candidate for Vice President but she was instantly familiar—and lovable–to her fans.

Palin’s visage is reminscent of Cindy Sherman’s photographs. In much of her work, Sherman dresses herself up in a variety of personas, many influenced by the culture of Hollywood. Palin doesn’t vary her look as much as Sherman, but her sheen and posture are heavily styled for the camera, almost letting us know that her appearance is a masquerade, as in Sherman’s work. Sherman’s photographs are self-portraits but none of them reveal who the “real” Sherman is. Rather they disguise the female in the photographic frame and prohibit authenticity. Likewise Palin constantly prepares herself for her performance in front of the camera, hiding herself with a constructed image of the all-American girl who grew up and just “gosh darn it” had to become a politician in order to help out “joe six pack.”

At the vice presidential debate we learned that Sarah likes to wink and send “shout outs” to third graders who are getting extra credit by watching her on TV. Her tactic suited the dramatics of her performance style perfectly–she looked straight at the camera rather than at Biden (she immediately asked his permission to call him “Joe” as a way to neutralize his threat and avoid calling him Senator) or the moderator Gwen Ifill. With her direct address, avoiding the “filter” of the mainstream media (and that “mean” Katie Couric!) she pitched her folksy speech—and her winks—right at the folks at home. She flirted with her viewers, mixing talking points with a seductive manner—and at moments her performance moved into “Hockey Moms Gone Wild” territory with the way she posed for the audience, ignoring not only Joe and Gwen but also the questions she was asked. She was a Sherman self-portrait, altering her persona for the event. Knowing she couldn’t beat Biden on facts and figures, she heightened her sexuality for maximum effect.

Palin’s ability to recount her rise to power may not be subtle but her communication style succeeds. In every utterance she reminds her auditor that she is the author of her own life and the star of her very own show, no matter how many clichés she uses. No doubt she has taken on the good ‘ole boys; but in repeating this refrain she cloaks the fact that she just became the new leader of the “boys.” She still uses the same old strong arm tactics—she just calls these tactics “reform.” Her repetition of the joke about lipstick and pit bulls is no joke at all: she gets to lie and tell the truth in the same moment. She instructs us how extraordinary she is by emphasizing how ordinary she is.

Sarah Palin’s success as an enunciator of myth reveals to us what is missing in the campaigns of the Democrats since Bill Clinton (Obama may believe in hope, but Clinton was actually born in a town called Hope). The narrative that Obama recites about his family is a decided attempt to normalize him despite the fact that he has an “odd” name and a father from another country. Yet he and his campaign continually fail to translate the story of his life into mythology, as defined by Roland Barthes. For Barthes, myth was a form of speech that naturalizes a fabrication–it allows a falsehood to ring true. In the essay “Myth Today” Barthes writes that myth has “a double function: it points out and it notifies, it makes us understand something and it imposes it on us.” Obama and his campaign are concerned with meaning; their words are bound to what Barthes referred to as the connotative level. Obama actually speaks to socio-cultural realities, which in this election may ultimately prove to be the correct strategy given our economic crisis.

Unlike Palin, Obama’s speech avoids evocation of the mythic frontier of America. Palin grew up in this landscape and invokes it in every syllable—she could outshoot Annie Oakley easily. She doesn’t have to defend her pioneer family from Native Americans but if need be she will take on the Russians that she can see across the Bering Strait. She and her right wing handlers know that repetition of falsehoods (such as her refusing earmarks) will prove to be successful in advancing her candidacy and her political future: she imposes her story on us. Left-leaning bloggers and others go crazy about the inconsistencies in her tale and her lack of foreign policy experience and insinuate that she is stupid, but the more they do so, the more her performance resonates for those in the Republican base. She is a doll who has come to life, camera-ready.