Why does Sarah Palin seem to connect so well with so many people? Men (but not exclusively) seem taken by her performances at the convention and the ABC interview and my personal reactions to her came as a shock.
I recall moments in both events in which my reptilian brain completely took control and put her inane or vile spoken words on mute. The words no longer mattered because I was in her inner circle of trust with an invite to get much closer...
First the stage is set with hair, glasses and conservative attire that may remind viewers of the very common 'hot librarian' fantasy. Removing the glasses and dropping the hair are part of the 'unwrapping the package' part of this fantasy - private and conservative delights seen as far more refined and sexy than 'in your face' displays of skin and cleavage.
As a rule I have no use for 'body language analysis' that is so commonly leveraged by the party in charge, police, sales and marketing pros. I have no interest in it, don't know the lingo, and probably make plenty of errors in this post.
That said, something in Sarah Palin's performance is lighting up the reptilian brain. Here is a great example:
Let me pause a moment and say that pointing to this interview or the convention speech on YouTube significantly dampens my ability to demonstrate my case. As originally broadcast and displayed on a large HDTV set, the reptilian reaction was much more pronounced. Better images, beautiful colors, larger than life display, and a higher frame rate make it easier to spot the very small and fast clues while blocking out distractions.
Turn the sound off. In this video clip between 0:31 and 0:38 she is very busy with a subtextual conversation. The words really don't matter since this 'babe' is clearly flirting directly with me and making my head spin. This is the general sequence of events but there are other expressions I'm missing in these 7 seconds (exercise left to the reader):
Snarl
Quick smile
Quick Wink and head tilt
Nice smile
Slower Wink and private half face smile
All this feels like baiting the hook. The snarl initially catches viewer attention. The smile that follows is her recognition of 'ah, he spotted it.' Then a flash of a wink to test the waters. A nice smile to let the viewer swallow the hook, and finally a big wink and private smile to yank back on the line and set the hook. Take me home now!
It doesn't really matter if this is intentional behavior or not. A life time of refining non-verbal communication skills and successfully manipulating the men around her with flirty unspoken promises of intimacy and sex clearly has worked very well for her. Play the video again, this time with sound and realize that she is pulling out the flirting trick at exactly the time she is struggling with the interview. Old tricks die hard.