Krystal Ball the Left's Answer to Sarah Palin

Christine O'Donnell may have been, for a brief shining moment, the poster candidate of youthful overexposure, what Slate's Jessica Grose called the "first new media candidate" who presaged "a media universe in which old, dumb Facebook posts and unearthed tweets become a consistent source of fodder for journalists." But we didn't have to wait very long for that next phase. In case you're not the sort of reader who clicks on links headlined "At Least One Candidate for Congress Has Fellated a Reindeer Nose": Krystal Ball is a 28-year-old Virginia Democrat running for Congress in a very Republican district. She found herself suddenly in the national spotlight when a right-wing blog published six- or seven-year-old photos of Ball dressed as sexy Santa, performing the aforementioned act on a dildo affixed to her antler-wearing then-husband's nose.

National sites like Gawker racked up hundreds of thousands of pageviews by republishing the photos. That, combined with her seriously? name quickly made Ball a punch line. But instead of backing away red-faced, Ball took umbrage: She fired back with a statement that was not only unapologetic but defiant. Soon it morphed into a manifesto of Facebook-generation feminism: "Society has to accept that women of my generation have sexual lives that are going to leak into the public sphere. Sooner or later, this is a reality that has to be faced, or many young women in my generation will not be able to run for office." As for the photos, she finds them "tremendously embarrassing, but mostly because I'm shy, not because I think that what I did was wrong." Millennial women writing on Jezebel, Broadsheet, Lemondrop, and the Frisky were indeed enthused. One 26-year-old I know went so far as to breathlessly compare the statement to Obama's 2008 speech on race. But what's most interesting about Ball is something that might not endear her to the left. She admires Sarah Palin—maybe not her policy views, but her nervy willingness to run as a mother of young children, and her unapologetic folksiness. And in a way, she has modeled herself after Palin. In her wholehearted embrace of femininity, her sense of entitlement, her bold jump to the front of the line, Ball may be the left's answer to Sarah Palin.

Advertisement: Valentine Day Shopping, Jewellery and Clothes of First Ladies,  Lifestyle of the First Ladies,  Save 50.0% on select products from VANLAMS with promo code 50EAYVTV, through 1/31 while supplies last.

(source:slate.com)