Lay Off Palin . . . Please!

An election does not go by without someone paraphrasing Will

Roger’s famous
quotation about not being a part of an organized Party because we are Democrats.  Well, as Democrats, we may not be organized,
but we sure are predictable…and we have walked-nay, sprinted-right into the trap
Republicans laid for us with the Palin nomination.

The glee with which liberal bloggers, Democratic pundits,
and the media latched on to the fact that Palin’s inexperience makes her less
qualified to be President than Obama–as if doing so would somehow undermine
the GOP attack on Obama as inexperienced–is mind-boggling.

A friend of mine summed up the problem with our side’s engaging
in this debate over experience best: “Obama is our starting QB, but she’s their
back-up.”  So even if we win the argument
that Palin doesn’t have enough experience to be President, we lose.  Because, of all the reasons Obama is a better
pick than McCain, experience is not one of them.

It’s not as if Obama is a walk-away winner in this
comparison with Palin either.  A
Rasmussen poll
that came out yesterday found that only 42% of Americans think Obama’s
experience better equips him to be President than Palin, while 37% think
Palin’s experience is better, and 21% are undecided.

Perhaps most importantly, every minute we spend attacking
Palin’s experience is one less minute we’re spending talking about Democratic
values, jobs, the healthcare crisis, President Bush, and other things we want
voters focused on as they head to the ballot box…and by making the case to
voters that McCain made a poor choice because of Palin’s inexperience, we just
reinforce one of the central Republican arguments that experience is a key
factor voters should be considering.

Unfortunately, our attacks have not stopped there,
though.  I’ve lost count of the number of
times our side has said she isn’t qualified to be President or to know what’s
in the best interest of Americans b/c she’s from a small town.  Here’s a newsflash: millions of American
voters LIVE IN SMALL TOWNS.  They are the
swing voters Obama must win over to become President. And our condescending comments
about Palin’s small-town roots work only to further alienate this important
portion of the electorate.

And while the fact that Palin shoots, cleans, and eats her
own moose might result in some snickers in the coffee shops of large cities,
that stuff is gold throughout much of this country.

But the worst of the Democratic responses to Palin’s
nomination have been the character attacks on her as a bad mom because her
daughter got pregnant out of wedlock.  Those
sorts of attacks are morally repugnant whether they are made by social
conservatives or by Democrats attacking social conservatives.  But they are also strategically dumb.  When many of the blogs and media started dissecting
the revelation about Palin’s pregnant daughter, they showed how little they
understand middle America and religious conservatives by acting as if that would
be a major blow to the ticket and proof that McCain rushed into his VP choice
without vetting.

I would bet money that Palin’s pregnant daughter was one of the key
reasons Republicans chose her.  Having
a pregnant daughter, especially one “taking responsibility for her actions” (by
“choosing” to have the baby), just makes Palin more “real” for her flaws, and a
mom with whom many in middle America can relate.

Republicans thrive on being “persecuted,” and they knew that
our side would not be able to contain itself from the opportunity to level the
same vicious character attacks on Palin that we always condemn in the Religious
Right and GOP.  And that we’d probably just
spice up those attacks by throwing in some elitism and disdain for small town
rural folks.  And Republicans could rest
assured that we’d come back at Palin using their
definition of “family and Christian values” instead of by questioning how Palin’s
Party could claim to represent Christ’s values while supporting torture and cutting
programs that help the poor, the sick, and the needy…or claim to be Pro-Life and
then cut WIC and veto the expansion of children’s health care.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending the Republican
electoral strategies…but instead of focusing so much on what we don’t like
about Republican politics that we lose sight of who we are and why we are
Democrats, we need to get our head in the game and start showing some respect
and understanding for the millions of working Americans in middle America we
are asking to vote for us.

Palin may very well mess up on the campaign trail (we can
always hope), and there could be a skeleton lurking in the closet that has yet
to be revealed.  But right now,
especially after her convention speech, we need to accept that she was an
extremely smart choice by the Republicans and could very well be a game-changer
in this election.  But here’s the thing: She can be a game changer only if we keep
the game focused on her. 

She’s more personable (and a whole lot prettier) than
McCain.  She has better appeal to the GOP
base and to the rural blue collar voters that Obama struggled so hard to win
over during the primary.  And the more we
attack her, the more many Americans will want to come to her defense.  So rather than focusing our attention on a
woman running for “the most
insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his
imagination conceived,” as John Adams put it, let’s lay off Palin…and return
our attention to the only way we will win this election: by focusing on Democratic
values, jobs, and the fact that the Republicans are responsible for the disaster
that has been the Bush Administration.