ABC NewsBy QUINN SCANLAN, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said she hopes the media will treat Joe Biden’s vice presidential pick, California Sen. Kamala Harris, “not as personally rough” as they treated her in 2008, but that shouldn’t mean she’s given a pass.
“A lot of the coverage of me was quite unfair … I hope that they will treat her fairly,” Palin said in an exclusive interview on ABC’s Good Morning America Thursday. “But at the same time, no kid gloves … the American voter wants to know that we have the most capable people running and who will be elected, regardless of gender, regardless of race.”
The former Alaska governor said she has already seen a lot of woman come out in support of Harris, urging against sexist attacks, which she said wasn’t done for her or the first female vice presidential nominee, Geraldine Ferraro.
Palin became the second woman chosen to join a major party’s ticket when the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chose her as his running mate during his presidential run against Barack Obama in 2008.
Before Palin, Ferraro made history in 1984 as the first woman chosen for the vice presidential slot, when former Democratic nominee Walter Mondale tapped her.
“I would like to think that both Geraldine Ferraro and I, in our respective parties, we were able to kind of bust down some doors and show some American voters who perhaps were hesitant to believe that women are capable of doing a whole lot of things all at once … we were able to prove that,” Palin told ABC News anchor Amy Robach.
After Biden announced he had chosen Harris, Palin took to Instagram to offer some tips for Harris as she navigates the final stretch of the presidential campaign by Biden’s side. Two of those tips were “don’t get muzzled” and “have fun!”
“Some campaign managers they sure attempted to muzzle and for a while there, I was muzzled. So I hope that she doesn’t go through that,” Palin said on GMA. “I hope that you know she stands strong and reminds campaign managers, you know, you don’t know any more than anybody else.”
Palin said she had a blast running alongside McCain, adding, “I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
“It was just the most the most amazing experience to get to see America, to get to see Americans and who it is that makes this country so great,” she said.
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