The Republican spin on John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin to be his vice president identifies her with Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro as women breaking through the glass ceiling. The Democrats counter that Mrs. Palin looks more like Dan Quayle or Spiro Agnew, who were nominated for positions without the requisite experience or qualifications. But the real historical analogy for the Palin selection is neither Ms. Ferraro nor Mr. Quayle, but rather President George H.W. Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall on the U.S. Supreme Court. Both nominations were based on the premise that Americans would support symbol over substance.

Both Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Palin were nominated with minimal experience for the job. Mrs. Palin's lack of qualifications are by now well known. Mr. Thomas had little legal experience, had only served on the Court of Appeals for a year and had written no major opinions. His main experience had been as a political appointee of President Reagan, who named him to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Both Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Palin were nominated because they were members of politically disempowered groups on the heels of the political defeat or death of a leading advocate for the rights of that group. Their sponsors hoped they would appeal to those groups despite their ideologically divergent positions. And both were chosen based on their ideology over others who had much more experience and better qualifications for the position.

Most important, both nominations emphasize symbol over substance. Both Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Palin were chosen as symbols of female or black advancement despite their substantive disagreement with feminist or civil rights views.

Mrs. Palin opposes abortion in all circumstances while recent polls show that almost two-thirds of women agree with the Supreme Court decisions that established a woman's right to an abortion and only 15 percent believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases. Mrs. Palin is a strong advocate of the NRA and opposes stricter gun control laws, yet recent polls show that 65 percent of women, in contrast to only 43 percent of men, favor such gun control laws.

So too, Mr. Thomas was nominated because he was a strong opponent of affirmative action and liberal enforcement of civil rights legislation, even though his substantive positions on those issues were at odds with the overwhelming sentiment in the black and civil rights communities.

The irony of these nominations is that they promote people who work against the interests of a particular group, and do so in the name of that group.

Unfortunately, Americans do seem to vote for and elevate symbol over substance. Again and again Americans will chose symbolic fixes instead of evaluating the actual substance of proposals to solve real problems. Americans' predilection for symbols has fueled political cynicism, leaving elections to be decided by sound bites and not sound programs. Social science research has shown that people tend to respond more to symbolic, vivid images than to substantive issues.

In nominating Mrs. Palin, Mr. McCain is hoping that many women will vote against their own views in support of the symbolic elevation of a woman to a high government position. The Clarence Thomas fiasco, by which a black man opposed to extending civil rights now sits as the weakest justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, should serve as a lesson of the dangers of substituting symbol above substance.