When John McCain made his concession speech in Arizona early on Wednesday morning, the body language between him and his running mate Sarah Palin was almost agonizing to watch.

McCain has privately been telling aides in the past few weeks that Palin is “more trouble than a pitbull.”
Sarah Palin energised the Republican base, but in swing states and the more liberal areas of the United States she was shockingly divisive.

“Putting on the tight skirts, wearing high heels as part of the uniform, using uber femininity as the uniform, you’re dressing as a flight attendant from 1962,” says New York-based feminist author Gina Barreca. “This was not Gloria Steinem becoming a Playboy bunny, this was a Playboy bunny trying to be Gloria Steinem.”

So, what now for Palin?
That depends on the coming battle for the heart and soul of the Republican party.
The defeat to Obama was a landslide, the GOP’s worst showing since 1996, and for weeks now – the Republicans have been privately conceding a defeat of this nature for some time – debates have been going on about the direction of the party.

Republicans in outposts such as California, the rest of the West Coast and the Eastern Seaboard cities were, as early as this morning, calling for the emergence of a Republican Party that is more feminised, less extreme in its politics – and less monochromatic. The GOP is almost entirely white, in a country where one third of the population is from an ethnic minority.

Those Republicans deliberately kept social questions, such as abortion rights and gay marriage, out of the later debates because Palin’s views on those – in 2005 she told C-Span, the U.S. public TV network that she opposed abortion in all circumstances, even rape – proved such a problem in the polls.

Conversely, Palin’s popularity in her home state of Alaska and in other traditional Republican states like Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and across whole swathes of the south, has never been higher.

It is probable that Palin will make a bid for the Presidency, either in 2012 or 2016, although how far she gets remains to be seen. Analysts last night said the criticism of Palin was as a person, not as a woman – although she may have made things more difficult for future female candidates.

Susan Nolan, director of Women’s Studies at Seton Hall University,near New York City, said: “Given the criticisms leveled against Palin, major political parties will be reluctant to back a female or minority candidate without being certain she could hold her own.”