You know I have spent considerable time in Alaska and much of it in Wasilla. I can well understand how somebody with Sarah Palin's personality and energy could rise to become governor of that state by virtue of her merit. In Alaska, at least in the Wasilla area, everybody knows everybody else and you better be a standup guy. You can be as eccentric as an out- house rat, but you better be a straight shooter and you better not put on no airs.
These down-home virtues are what is needed but not what is prized in Washington. I believe Sarah Palin is up against two psychological forces which she must overcome.
The first is a phenomenon applied to all Republican candidates that I can remember since Eisenhower. I can remember being told quite earnestly that the man who commanded the biggest, most complicated, and most successful amphibious operation in history was really quite stupid. Every succeeding Republican president since Eisenhower (excepting Nixon who was evil) was stupid. This calumny is tried on against every Republican candidate who comes along. We saw what happened to Dan Quayle. Can you recall how stupid Ronald Reagan was? Bedtime for Bozo? George Bush Sr. was out of touch and stupid, although his wife was conceded to be house smart in a grandmotherly sort of way. We all know her son is a moron. Sarah Palin, like Dan Quayle, was left out there exposed, unprepared and unsupported and no one should be surprised that the result was the same. So when Palin drops her gs and says "aw shucks," that is all the Eastern establishment needed to hear to match up the person with the holes in the template.
Of course, President Kennedy was in near genius who sped read at an amazing clip. We found out later that this was a lie and that his Pulitzer prize-winning book was ghostwritten. We now know that he must have been in a thick drug-induced cloud for much of his tenure in the Oval Office. Do you remember being told how intuitive Bill Clinton was and how he could summarize an expert's presentation better than the expert? Al Gore was a genius who was too good for the schools he flunked out of. And Barak Obama, well one can only express astonishment that his coming was not announced by John the Baptist.
And this messianic allusion brings me to the main problem which Sarah Palin confronts in structuring her image. It is the Billy Budd effect. If you recall your Melville, you will know that Billy Budd was a figure of good whose very presence antagonized the first mate who persecuted Billy Budd unmercifully. The mate was driven to do this unconsciously because the mate was a figure of evil. The mate had his demons. So it is with the left in America today, they are driven to a visceral hatred of Sarah Palin because she is the 21st century figure of Billy Budd. Sarah Palin committed an unforgivable affront, she knowingly carried a Mongoloid to term. This cannot be forgiven. This is the ultimate reproach to the entire belief system of the left. Sarah Palin need not even open her mouth and she is hated with a cold and unremitting fury.
This is why I said that the left hates Sarah Palin not for what she says or how she appears on television but for who she is. The left must react as evil always reacts in the presence of good. Like the second mate, they must persecute Sarah Palin and they do not even know why.
But Sarah Palin should must know why if she is going to be able to cope with a brick bats that will come her way. She must know that she can never charm these people. The more she tries the more they will hate her. She must focus on her target, the conservative base which she will keep so long as she is faithful and the independent middle which is persuadable if she can appear to be a normal and a wholesome person.
Very, very impressive article on the Governor from Alaska’s VP race!
It’s a delight to see after all the fluff posted here by her fans and even more notably by her critics (well, the media supplies them more fluff to post).
And for at least the last forty years, the two parties have broken down distinctly along this double axis. The Republican party has been the party of cultural populism and economic elitism, and the Democrats have been the party of cultural elitism and economic populism. Republicans tend to identify with the traditional values, unabashedly patriotic, anti-cosmopolitan, non-nuanced Joe Sixpack, even as they pursue an economic policy that aims at elite investor-driven growth. Democrats identify with the mistreated, underpaid, overworked, crushed-by-the-corporation “people against the powerful,” but tend to look down on those people’s religion, education, and way of life.