Backlash

One thing that really bothers me about the Democratic attacks on Sarah Palin is the sneering, jeering classism. She talks like that Minnesota sheriff on “Fargo”; she went to the University of Idaho; she competed in beauty pageants; she goes hunting; she has big hair; she is from a small town in the country; she is married to an oil field worker who races snowmobiles; she has all those kids! How hilarious! How declasse!

Democrats used to be the party of the common man–of people like the Palins–but that was before they were taken over by privileged children of the Sixties and wealthy fashionistas. Republicans back then were party of the country club set. But, though Democrats still champion poor people in their rhetoric and harvest them for their votes; and though Republicans still vote pro-business, the social class dynamics are all awry from what they used to be. The so-called “New Class” of information producers–internet tycoons, teachers, media types–is our new elite, displacing the old middle class that produces tangible products, and the New Class is socially liberal.

At any rate, Democratic activists, before they get too clever in their insults, would do well to remember that folks in battleground states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan talk like Governor Palin. (That’s another thing: the utter rudeness! The commentators would not even call her by her title, Governor, and often didn’t even give her credit for her current job, saying she was just a “small town mayor”!)

Anyway, a backlash against this vicious treatment seems to be setting in. So says New Palin details may help, not hurt – Charles Mahtesian – Politico.com:

Fishing permit violations. A blue-collar husband who racked up a DUI citation as a 22-year-old. An unmarried teenage daughter who is pregnant and a nasty child custody battle involving a family member.

All of this, to one degree or another, has surfaced in recent days as a result of efforts to discredit or undermine Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But these revelations may have the opposite effect: In one sense, they could reinforce how remarkably unremarkable she is.

So far — and it is hard to tell what the future may hold for Palin’s unexpected national candidacy — the travails of the Palin family probably seem awfully familiar to many average Americans. It is this averageness that makes her such a politically promising running mate for John McCain — and such a dangerous opponent for Democrats.

Here Michele Catalano says how she disagrees with Governor Palin on the issues. “But the last two days of mudslinging against Palin have been so extreme, they have transformed her into an almost sympathetic figure in my eyes. More important, the barbs thrown at her have made me look upon liberals with a level of contempt I have not felt since, well, 2004.”

Here a self-described leftist feminist praises Governor Palin and decries the “misogyny” of her critics.

As one TV pundit (whose name I didn’t catch) said, Sarah Palin is the candidate of those small town, religious, gun-loving folks that were the targets of Barack Obama’s condescension. There are a lot of them. They have an attitude. They used to be Democrats. And they vote.