Huffington Post Asks: Is Hutchison Washington's Sarah Palin?

Susan like me? Oh yeah, you betcha.

​Well, sort of. Both their careers were jump-started thanks to their looks; beauty queen for one, newscaster for the other. But Bellevue psychologist, author and former evangelical Valerie Tarico tells Huffington Post that the comparison holds water for reasons beyond teased hair:

I look at Susan Hutchison, and as a former evangelical I see a woman on a mission, in that sense much like Sarah Palin, but without the weird exorcism of witches stuff. Hutchison's evangelical associations have steered her in a very specific political direction: She gave money to evangelical Republican Mike Huckabee over John McCain. She refuses to answer questions about reproductive rights. Heck, she even refuses to tell people that she's a Republican. While working for Charles Simonyi and giving away his money, she has had plenty of opportunity to become more sophisticated about the scientific method and data based decisions -- but instead I worry that she has become better at clinging to an ideology in the face of evidence to the contrary. I personally prefer having someone in the King County Exec office who bases their policy decisions on data and who is on a mission to serve the people of King County.

Tarico also says Hutchison's "message quality" is on par with Rick Warren and Joel Osteen. Now that's setting a high bar!