Like many conservatives who live in liberal enclaves, I have been asked, challenged, and aggressively, insultingly pushed to explain, many times now, how it could be that Sarah Palin is the most qualified person John McCain could have picked. Once we get past the part of the answer where we analyze the various white men he could have chosen, all solid, but none likely to really move the ticket from dignified defeat to a win, the question comes up, “aren’t there any more seriously qualified women?” (From women, even more than men.)

There are, of course, a larger crop of women Senators and Governors now than ever. Some of them have done well, and clearly substantive people. Some are time servers, like most politicians. But no others are really stars, who could have injected the dynamism Palin has brought to the campaign.

What’s the added dimension? You know it when you see it. When you look at Sarah Palin, or Barack Obama, you see attractive, intelligent people whose abilities to communicate are just at a different quantum level than most successful, statewide politicians — even those with more substantive achievments. Watch this WSJ video of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski. She is a Republican, middle aged, intelligent, and understands the energy issue as well as Governor Palin does. She is not unattractive, but, like most Senators (and Governors) she isn’t stunning either. She speaks clearly and coherently, and pauses thoughtfully to construct her sentences. She sends out a very different set of signals than Governor Palin, by dint of her intellectual style. But in the end, she is drab and a bit dull, even with the bright red jacket. We have been conditioned by the media — but also by our natural social inclinations — to look for a jazzier style of presentation, of self and material. Palin does it; Murkowski doesn’t. The camera loves Palin, even from that ridiculous side angle used in the Hannity interview. Murkowski is a little camera shy, and looks away, hiding half her face. It doesn’t read well.

And none of that has anything to do with the fact that Palin came from nowhere, and Murkowski inherited her seat. Or that Palin really did face down and beat a seriously corrupt political culture, and Murkowski inherited her seat in that culture. Even Murkowski (extremely graciously) says as much about Palin.

If Palin were plainer, would she be considered more serious? Why aren’t Obama’s Hollywood good looks held against him? If he were short and fat would the elite culture be swooning and writing the big checks? (Would Andrew Sullivan and Chris Matthews be swooning?) Even with that Harvard degree? Inquiring minds want to know.