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Last Updated: Sep 5, 2008 - 10:50:54 AM |
I'd been hearing it all week from the delegates. "She's relatable," a
Florida fellow said. "I think what Gov. Palin's able to offer is the
perspective of any everyday American," a Mississippi delegate told me.
"She's real--real people. Wow!" a Texas delegate chimed in. Her family
troubles, which have fueled a feeding frenzy among the dimwits who blog
on the Huffington Post, only testified all the more powerfully to her
everydayness. "If anything, it just kind of shows what a normal
American she is. Family crises and situations like this arise in
families all across the country, and I think she's doing the best with
the situation. I think it will make Gov. Palin all the more strong,"
said another Texan.
You might not think that averageness would qualify a person for the
second-highest office in the land. But if you might not think that, you
haven't been paying attention to the way Republicans have won
presidential elections for the last forty years. Palin is the logical
extension of the cultural populism that has warped our politics--and
for which the Democrats have, as yet, found no good answer.
The "one of us" quality--and her talent at projecting it--is clearly
what got Palin on the ticket (silly chatter about Hillary voters
aside). With his underrated grasp of the kind of substance-free
emotional symbolism that wins national elections, John McCain sniffed
out in Palin a kind of Hollywood fairy tale: homegirl from small town,
reluctant beauty queen, plucky point guard, deadly shot and mother of
five, suddenly--magically--plucked from obscurity and thrust into the
national spotlight.
Come to think of it, even Julia Roberts might have turned down this
half-baked script (though the chance to sport a beehive and have a
movie hubby as hunky as Todd would surely have been a temptation). But
Palin--who replied to her first shouted reporter's question about her
readiness for the job with a crisp, Alaskan "Sure, yup, yup"--showed no
such scruples. She'd made it refreshingly clear, early in the "vetting"
process, that she had no notion of what a vice president does--another
big plus, no doubt, in McCain's view.
Because Palin is not on the ticket to do anything. She's on the ticket
to be something. It's all about firing up the non-ideological
center--which can only be done by drowning the economic sufferings of
average Americans once again under a wave of whitebred, flag-waving,
faux populism. And it has rarely been put across more effectively than
she did Thursday night.
This tough politician is hardly "just your average hockey mom who
signed up for the PTA," by a long stretch, but that doesn't make a damn
bit of difference in American politics. Palin is certainly an
extremist--but she doesn't come across like one, so the label is going
to be tough to stick on her. All that matters, in our twisted and
media-soaked politics, is that you play the part well. Palin's
apparently got the knack. No matter how the plot might strain
credulity, the performance was Oscar-worthy. And the Democrats have got
themselves a whole new set of worries.
When Palin cracked wise about Barack Obama or the media, she delivered
the lines like a snarky neighbor leaning over the fence, complaining
about the elitists--or the "good old boys"--to her next-door neighbor.
Her dandiest line of the night, equally well delivered, was directed at
Obama's stupid comment about the bitterness of struggling Americans:
"We tend to prefer a candidate," she said, "who doesn't talk about us
one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco." This, more than
anything, made me cringe. However much I admire Obama, it carried the
ring of home truth--delivered by someone who can make such lines hit
home.
It's all pure-T bullshit, of course: another "everyday" politician
who's going to put the screws to every working person in America if she
gets the chance. But so was Nixon's populism, and Reagan's, and Bush's.
Americans fully expect bullshit from their politicians. It only matters
that it's the right kind. And Sarah Palin, as we learned last night, is
frighteningly full of it.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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