Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has some political assets, and some political liabilities.<\/p>\n
For a small but important slice of American voters — say 25-30% — her assets seem huge. She’s folksy, authentic, a member of their own tribe.<\/p>\n
In my book a couple of years ago, I called her small-town base “the Homeland.” Pundits these days are simply calling it “Palinland.”<\/p>\n
But polls suggest that a growing number of Americans, more than half already, are more concerned with her political liabilities.<\/p>\n
Palin lacks experience and occasionally seems incapable of answering fairly straightforward questions. (What newspapers do you read? What Supreme Court rulings haven’t you liked?)<\/p>\n
But a small slice of the electorate (maybe 20-25%, I’m guessing here) also seems distinctly put-off by Palin’s “rural” affect.<\/p>\n
Her Fargo-style accent, her “you betchas” and her winks. It seems that what sells in Peoria doesn’t have the same appeal inside the urban beltway.<\/p>\n
“If you, out of nowhere, are going to grab a woman out of the woods and make her your vice presidential candidate,” opined Daily Show host Jon Stewart, “what can I do?” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Sarah Palin is like Jodie Foster <\/span>in the movie ‘Nell.’ They just found her, and she was speaking her own special language.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Ouch. The fact is that Palin talks a lot like a couple of people in my own family.<\/p>\n
But Stewart’s not alone.<\/p>\n
New York Times columnist David Brooks, as urban a conservative as you can find, lamented what he describes as Palin’s anti-intellectualism, long a code for bumpkinism.<\/p>\n
Sarah Palin represents a fatal cancer on the Republican Party…there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I’m afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The contrast between Palin’s world of Joe Sixpacks and America’s urban voters feels razor sharp this election cycle — in part because urbanites are angry.<\/p>\n
To them, she looks like the outsider, the book-burner, the homophobe, the bumpkin.<\/p>\n
But it’s also true that Palin herself is contributing to the divide. <\/p>\n
Her stump speech is an openly us-against-them rallying of an embattled faithful — read, small town “normal” folks — with Barack Obama cast as the dangerous interloper.
\u201cThis is not a man who sees America like you and I see America,\u201d she said, of the Democratic candidate.<\/span><\/p>\nThe problem long-term for Republicans — especially Republicans who would use Palin-like populist figures to rally their crucial rural base — is that Barack Obama is the future.<\/p>\n
I don’t mean him individually. I mean people like him.<\/p>\n
For something like 75% of Americans, the multicultural, multi-racial, urban experience IS the American experience.<\/p>\n
And the trend is accelerating. By mid-century, we’re almost certain to be a white-minority nation, with 90% of voters living in cities and suburbs.<\/p>\n
That’s a problem the GOP has to solve.<\/p>\n
When Palin says Obama doesn’t see America in a normal or patriotic way, she may be channeling the fears of one community — but she’s also delivering a nasty kick to the hopes and aspirations of another (much larger) community.<\/p>\n
All of which doesn’t mean that Republicans can’t nominate rural-friendly candidates.<\/p>\n
But it does mean that they might consider choosing candidates who have more appeal across the cultural battle line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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