Palin exudes sexual confidence and maternal authority, which in a relatively conservative culture like ours is the most recognizable and viscerally comprehensible form of female power. It makes a lot of men uncomfortable, but that's because it's the kind of female power they are most often subject to, and most often fail to successfully resist. I spent much of my life taking orders from women a lot like Sarah Palin -- women like my mother and my Iowa public school teachers. Indeed, it makes a lot more emotional sense for me to feel led by by a woman like that than by some hotshot Air Force pilot. When a guy with a buzzcut says "jump," I say "screw you." When a woman like Sarah Palin says "jump," I am inclined to deferentially inquire into the requirements of this jump.
Palin's speech, I think, set in stark relief what Hillary was/is lacking. Again, I think O'Rourke gets it right when she says,
Ironically, [Palin] may have an easier time bringing what CNN called "toughness and femininity" together precisely because she never assumed at the outset of her adult life that she'd end up in a role like this.
I have very mixed feelings about this. I do not think politics is noble, and I deplore career politicians like Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden, and, yes, Hillary Clinton. I would in fact rather be ruled by competent small-town mayors than accomplished professional rent-seekers. (Palin, being very smart, made great strides in this regard during her short time as Governor, because opportunistic predation is what politics is.) But I feel that Hillary's struggle to connect as a strong leadership-worthy woman was part of an attempt to forge a sense of feminine authority not founded an maternality and female sexual power. That she almost succeeded in this is astounding, and I think hugely to her credit.
But we all know that politics is a primate sport. We're used to marveling over the fact that the taller man usually wins, that a commanding, alpha-male jock toughness is de rigeur for successful presidential candidates. Palin's gut appeal drives home the perhaps inevitable but nevertheless regrettable fact that female political success is at some level going to be grounded in primate appeal, too. And, as a female primate, Palin is evidently "a force to be reckoned with" -- as the pundits kept saying.
But I don't want to push too hard on the biopsychology of this. Biology is heavily strained through through the filter of contingent culture and identity. That Palin reminded my of my school teachers is a matter of her acquired manner and the assumptions beneath them, a matter of her Upper-Midwest-sounding accent. I'm from a small town. She's from a small town! And damn straight: people who study at the University of Idaho (which is, in fact, where my sister is currently studying law) are every bit as smart as all you snide elitist Ivy League cosmoplitans!
The overwhelmed Republican delegates interviewed after the speech were at a total loss when asked to pin down specifically what they had liked about Palin's address. What they liked is that they saw a feminine yet powerful conservative Christian mother -- someone they understand, someone they would like to have as a friend, someone they are or would like to be. What they liked was the thrill of such direct cultural identification, of being on that stage and commanding attention and respect. I do not doubt that conservative Christian moms all over the country were brought to tears by the power of this. There are a lot of conservative Christian moms.
Palin made my gut want John McCain to win and then suffer a fatal heart attack. But I am a studied skeptic of my gut, and no wordly force could deliver my vote to him.
Another libertarian friend, an atheist who grew up in rural Wisconsin, voices similar sentiments:
My favorite line: "Contra my Democratic friends, I'm not sure that voters will see "But McCain really might die in office!" as a bug, rather than a feature."I heard basically the same thing last night from a friend who grew up in the small-town south. They're all libertarian. They're all male. They all liked her. She speaks to the sense of people who didn't go to Ivy League schools that Harvard grads think they're not quite bright, and definitely not competent to run their own lives without a Yale man supervising things. And they're entirely right that a lot of Ivy League grads do think this way, consciously or unconsciously.
In terms of political psychology, I loved the bait of Palin comparing herself to Obama. If people get itching for a Palin-Obama debate, Obama is in trouble. You're right to say that the Democrats should ignore her. The problem is, if she continues to be successful, rural America will flock to her anyways. I'm not a huge fan of McCain's nor of Palin's reported social conservativism, but my rural symptathies involutarily switched on during her speech and I couldn't help but root for her. You can love and live the life of the elite, and I'm certainly living it, and still appreciate the cultural world that people build for themselves when they can't afford Whole Foods, and moreover wouldn't shop there even if they could. I'm not sure the Democrats are there yet (geez, I'm still channeling my roots this morning).
Yes, the culture war is in full swing. It's an evolutionarily deep tendency that kicks when people are given either-or choices. I'm afraid reason doesn't and won't ever trump that as long as we're human.
Sarah Palin just delivered that vote, in Wisconsin and Iowa and Ohio and Western New York. She just reinvigorated the base, and yes, in this election turnout will matter. She did a really good job. I may not like what she stands for, but I have to acknowledge its power--and yes, that frequently, the coastal elites earn the revulsion of Middle America. They don't, to coin a phrase, hate us for our freedoms--our homosexual coddling, abortion loving ways. They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them.
* Mom's vote has correctly predicted the outcome of every presidential election since Nixon.
Much as I respect him, I don't think Will Wilkinson is a typical voter, heartland background or not. And note that he wasn't convinced to vote for McCain/Palin, he just thought it was an effective speech from a charismatic speaker.
I may not like what she stands for, but I have to acknowledge its power--and yes, that frequently, the coastal elites earn the revulsion of Middle America. They don't, to coin a phrase, hate us for our freedoms--our homosexual coddling, abortion loving ways. They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them.
Self-hatred is not usually a good mode in which to analyze politics.
As it happens, you actually are an American, even though you don't believe abortion is murder. There are a couple of other people around like you, too. Maybe you should spend your time arguing for your convictions, rather than arguing that your convictions are doomed to fail because "real" Americans hate people like you.
I may not like what she stands for, but I have to acknowledge its power--and yes, that frequently, the coastal elites earn the revulsion of Middle America. They don't, to coin a phrase, hate us for our freedoms--our homosexual coddling, abortion loving ways. They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them.
And George Bush Sr. is what? McCain isn't an elite? It was rich last night to see Mitt Romney and Mr. 9/11 using that elites line as well. Yeah, Obama is a coastal elite. Mencken is proven right over and over by those people you talk to.
whatever. spoken like an east coast elite. what i hate most about east coast elites is that they are the biggest set of pussies you will ever encounter in this country. and you know what? that's why the rest of the country hates you because they know when the chips are down the east coaster will cave. and the reason obama can fill a stadium is that he doesn't seem like he's gonna wilt in front of your eyes.
A truly hilarious find from the best political journalist in America, Glenn Greenwald:
"The first time her name ever appears in any news accounts, at least according to Nexis, was an April 3, 1996 article in The Anchorage Daily News that reported this:
Alaskans Line Up For a Whiff of Ivana
Sarah Palin, a commercial fisherman from Wasilla, told her husband on Tuesday she was driving to Anchorage to shop at Costco. Instead, she headed straight for Ivana.
And there, at J.C. Penney's cosmetic department, was Ivana, the former Mrs. Donald Trump, sitting at a table next to a photograph of herself. She wore a light-colored pantsuit and pink fingernail polish. Her blonde hair was coiffed in a bouffant French twist.
"We want to see Ivana," said Palin, who admittedly smells like salmon for a large part of the summer, "because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture." "
"Rural Identity Politics" almost sounds like code for something.
And are these people really libertarians or pseudo-libertarians. Can I guess that they, like Megan, voted for Bush, the least libertarian president since F. Roosevelt.
Reading the first part of Will's quote, I think he is implying his mom exudes sexual confidence.
Megan, how many of your friends are actually libertarian? I don't mean the "I agree with Bush on all the important matters, I just wish my taxes were lower" types (aka, Instapundit), or the "we need to keep the welfare state just make pot legal" types, or "I have a subscription to Reason magazine" types. But actual libertarians.
You know, I keep hearing the idea that Palin's appeal is that she's a "PTA mom." I can't possibly be the only person who hated the PTA moms in high school, can I? They're the ones who tried to shorten our breaks, cancel our trips, forbid us from playing music, force us into dress codes, etc. Hasn't three decades of American popular culture, from Animal House to Old School to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, focused on the idea that the prim and proper rubes are the very people that we're supposed to rebel against?
They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them.
Speaking as a "coastal elite" by birth and education (squaresville hick breeder by choice), I have to agree. Fancy education doesn't impress me, neither does absurdly high-flown rhetoric that is less edifying than an argument with a pseudonymous expat. The notion that it should impress me strikes me as insulting. I've done my time in the "top school" vineyards and there are a lot of idiots there.
Not that it makes any difference; Obama's way to the left, and I'm way to the right. As I tell the clueless college kids canvassing for Obama, my main problem with McCain is that he's too liberal, and you're not good looking enough to change my mind.
As a Montana girl, with an Ivy degree, I wanted to move away from Sarah Palin and her world as fast as I could. But after decades away, I understand her and her appeal. The chattering classes (Sally Quinn dragging out her huntin' and shootin' bona fides!) always underestimate these people, and then are stunned when the hick wipes the floor with them.
Palin's a perfect example of a woman who bought the womens' magazines at Albertson's when the covers proclaimed "You Can Have It All" and she went out and got it all. But the Park Slope mommies and the Urbanbaby mamas have moved on to exhaustion, anxiety, and quivering lower lips--Palin and mothers like her don't have the time to do so, and wouldn't even if they could. She must not have gotten the message that she's supposed to be unable to cope!
Moe--I don't get why that's all that funny for 1993. I think it's awesome that Ivana Trump, Czech immigrant, Olympic skier turned trophy wife bothered to go to Anchorage to sell scent.
Can we please have a moratorium on lefties deciding what makes a "real libertarian"? Or for that matter, of hard core libertarians policing the movement? We're not so numerous that we need to start kicking people out.
Does working for Cato qualify? All three of these people are hard core free markets, legalize drugs, and get the government out of my phone lines libertarians.
This is a conversation I've been having with friends and peers ever since I moved East to attend law school and became a member of that "coastal elite". There are two (well, probably more, but let's start with these two) forces at work here:
(1) People who live on the coasts, who attend "name" colleges and become lawyers and bankers and elite journalists, who read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, who have traveled extensively abroad and probably went to prep or private schools... these people are enormously powerful. They dominate the media and politics and the entertainment industry. And many of them are very smart, and even those that are not are relatively savvy about the way their world works, their world dominates the rest of the world.
(2) People who live in the fly-over states (I grew up in one and my family still lives there) are not all dumb, hyper-religious rubes. In fact, from personal experience, I'm pretty certain that the average intelligence of people on the coasts v. the fly-overs is about the same. But people in the fly-overs more often send their kids to state schools, are more likely to value entrepreneurship (of the family business variety) over a fancy degree, and (most relevant here) get a little tired of being told by a media and a political establishment dominated by the coasts that they are dumb, hyper-religious rubes.
And here's the kicker:
(3) National politicians and their Karl Roves figured this all out at some point. In order to win a national election, you have to win the fly-overs. And the Republicans have done a far superior job of playing the above two factors against each other. Is it disingenuous and hypocritical? YES!!! Is it smart and effective? Well obviously. Dems don't do this well. And one reason why is that they (and I am often one of "them") too often fall into the trap of believing that a person who attended Harvard is de facto smarter than a person who attended the University of Idaho, or that a person who is well-traveled (by virtue of financial opportunity) will be less provincial than someone who spent their whole life in and around Witchita, Kansas (I know this sounds far-fetched, but people from Witchita will be happy to tell you that they don't know shit about what happens in Prague, whereas someone from New York who has never set foot in Kansas will frequently presume to know everything about Kansas -- this is ignorance and provincialism if I ever saw it). Even when Republicans think these things, and I'm sure they do, when they speak, they toe the party line of giving the fly-overs their due. Dems can't get mad just because Republicans are more effective panderers.
So Palin will play well in the middle of the country because she's one of them and they know it and she will never look down her nose at them because they didn't go to an Ivy League College and didn't spend their junior years in France. And the Dems will grumble that this is all a ploy, and a lie, and that Palin will have no real role in a McCain administration. And they may well be right. But what are they mad about -- the pandering ploy, or the fact that they couldn't pull it off?
Who are you calling "leftie"? Cause I'm not one.
There is no doubt that Palin's going to do a seriously good job of tapping into whatever remains of the culture wars. The question is whether that's decisive in this election.
I'm not hardly a representative voter. Military brat (red) . Got a Ph.D. at major Ivy (blue). Hate East Coast elitism (red). Pro-life (red). Iconoclastic on economics (purple).
I've voted for the last four winners. I'm solid Obama this time around, so that means I can't quite hear Palin the way a non-partisan would. But while she made me nervous for the first half, I was not nervous by the end. Because the last thing I want after four years of Bush is another round of the culture wars. And that's what she was launching. Nasty, too.
So the question is how many voters are so sick of the culture wars, and of everything that the Bush political culture represents, that they are willing to put on hold their general annoyance at the disdain of the east coast elites? If they are like that, like me, she solidified Obama's margins. Cause as Nate Silver cogently argued, negative attacks don't work on voters who already like someone. They just make the attacker look like a jerk.
I grew up in Wisconsin. I attended the University of Wisconsin. I liked Wisconsin so much I went back for grad school. I went camping and fishing every summer and my neighbor taught me how to shoot his rifle and shotgun. He we enjoyed the venison ("high-speed beef") he shared with our family. I hope that preamble established my bone fides so I can safely say that Sarah Palin is a corrupt small-town hack politician without a shred of policy substance.
John McCain on the rise? North Dakota says otherwise. If Cranky McSame can't even be ahead in North Dakota at this point, he's truly doomed.
I misspelled bona fides. That's how not-elite I am.
They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them.
Bingo. That's it in an admirably short sentence. I wish I thought a reasonable number of people in the Democratic party would hear that, understand it, and attempt to overcome it. They won't, Mudcat Saunder's efforts notwithstanding for the rest of his life.
And by the way, has anyone taken a gander at Rove's ugly attack on small town mayors and governors of small states.
The hypocrisy is astounding.
The chattering classes (Sally Quinn dragging out her huntin' and shootin' bona fides!) always underestimate these people, and then are stunned when the hick wipes the floor with them.
I disagree. I don't think people anywhere in the US actually fail to realize that people from rural backgrounds are often very smart, politically skilled and hardworking. I think that's a kind of "Born Yesterday", "Legally Blonde" narrative that is easily available to be exploited, though. And I think that people with advanced education or expertise in the US, or who belong to "cosmopolitan" minorities for other reasons (gay, black, Jewish, poetry geek, whatever), carry with them a certain level of anxiety about being exposed as not "real" Americans.
You saw this in the CNN reaction immediately after Palin's speech. Paul Begala said to Anderson Cooper: "This cosmopolitan thing isn't going to work. People in small towns are worried about the economy. They're not looking for ways to vote that will piss off Anderson Cooper." Cooper went white and rigid, he looked like someone had called his mother a whore. Cooper: "You're saying I'm part of a cosmopolitan elite, I don't know what you're referring to there," or something. Cooper, of course, is the son of Gloria Vanderbilt, the heiress, and he's probably gay. He's like the uber-cosmopolitan. But he's deathly afraid of being fixed as such in the public mind.
And that's why he had to give a rave review to Sarah Palin's speech, which was a direct attack on him. It was a dismal display of successful playground bullying.
I find it interesting that so many commenters identify an opposition between "culture wars" and "issues." What do they think the culture wars are about? Yogurt?
Abortion, sex education (and by extension federalism of local public education), same-sex marriage, abortion -- these sound pretty issuey to me.
But then, many people see any opposition as "hate" or "nasty."
I want oppositional, partisan politics. I would like to have a choice - more choice that we're provided when politicians are not only nice to each other but are members of a tiresome DC life-time elite.
Oh, well.
Read what the independents in this focus group had to say about Palin's speech. Hint: it's not pretty.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080903/NEWS15/80904002
This was a speech for the base. I am confident it turned off as many swing voters as it pulled in.
"Does working for Cato qualify?"
Now if I was one of those snarky beltway libertarians, I'd have responded with a simple "No."
But I'm not trying to kick people out, I just want to ensure that the proper words are being used. Words are how we express definitions and concepts. If, for example, someone claims to be 1) in favor of the invasion and occupation of Iraq and 2) a libertarian, one can see how this can be confusing.
I'm so non-elite I misplaced the friggin apostrophe in Mudcat's last name.
But anyway. Anyone looking for a really good laugh should head over to Politico to read Roger Simon's (the journalist, not the screenwriter/PJ media guy) hilariously, pitiably bitchy and pathetically sarcastic "apology" for, excuse the hell out of him, just DOING HIS JOB, OK?
I wish I could type that tongue clicking/grunting thing that only women know how to do, that we learn to do when we're about 13, and that we use to preface everything we say to our parents. Because that's the tone of voice he takes in this piece. "Defensive?? I AM NOT DEFENSIVE! SCREW YOU,YOU DUMBASS REDNECK INBRED IDIOTS!"
I'm so non-elite I misplaced the friggin apostrophe in Mudcat's last name.
But anyway. Anyone looking for a really good laugh should head over to Politico to read Roger Simon's (the journalist, not the screenwriter/PJ media guy) hilariously, pitiably bitchy and pathetically sarcastic "apology" for, excuse the hell out of him, just DOING HIS JOB, OK?
I wish I could type that tongue clicking/grunting thing that only women know how to do, that we learn to do when we're about 13, and that we use to preface everything we say to our parents. Because that's the tone of voice he takes in this piece. "Defensive?? I AM NOT DEFENSIVE! SCREW YOU,YOU DUMBASS REDNECK INBRED IDIOTS!"
the best political journalist in America, Glenn Greenwald
You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
While you're at it, could you round up a few True Scotsmen? I'm tired of these salty porridge, skivvies-under-the-kilt McGregors!
They don't, to coin a phrase, hate us for our freedoms--our homosexual coddling, abortion loving ways. They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them.
Well, don't we?
I want to apologize to Megan for labeling her a "pseudo-libertarian". After reading,
I would have to go with "know-nothing David Brooks pseudo-independent, pseudo-libertarian". Megan actually thinks that They hate us because we act so big instead of They hate us because the Right Wing Noise Machine wants people like Megan to believe this. Ask Megan whom she thinks won the first Gore-Bush debate on 2000. Go ahead. Soft-pedalling Republican talking points like this is less libertarian than it is David Brooksian (albeit with better hair). But I suspect that's her goal.And if They don't hate us for the fag-loving and abortion, why all the fag-bashing and Pro-life bulljive? It's like Megan airbrushed all that crap out of her memory.
By the way, I'm no "leftie". I'm a Realiy Based Jon Stewart/Onion Independent. So there.
The Republican brand is so tarnished that the Democrats are running a black freshman Senator named Barack Hussien Obama - and he's winning! Eight years ago - hell, even four years ago - Obama would have lost the election by one trillion votes. Not this time.
Don't overestimate the power of kulterkampf and identity politics in this election. A week from now, nobody here in Middle America will remember much about Palin's speech. But we will remember that our economy sucks, our kids are in Iraq, and Bush has been President for the past 8 years.
People like Palin, but they like Obama too. And he's not running on Bush's record. That counts, even here in Missouri.
OK, I said I was gone (and I will be), but I just have to add one thing: How the f*ck do libertarians like her? Her policies are to the right of the Bush Administration which has done more to deprive us of liberty (let's not even get into the expansion of government and budget largess) than ANY other administration in modern American history.
These people ARE NOT LIBERTARIANS, they're paternalists. Perhaps Megan needs to go back to school and read-up on what a true libertarian is.
I wonder whether she'll help Obama with states like Florida though, by rallying the Latino and Jewish vote for him. The next weeks are going to be interesting.
I'm sure she fired up the base, but speeches like that work two ways.
I expected to like her. I'm a hockey mom too. I didn't think I'd like her policies, but I thought I'd like her. Instead, I hated her. HATED her. The smarmy condescension, the lies, the smugness, the snide remarks. Yeah, easy for her to sneer at community organizers, who work to register voters and get the streets paved. What need has she for community organizers-- when she wants the streets paved, she hires a lobbyist and gets the federal government (me!) to pay.
And then I surfed over to Huffington Post and watched her speech to her church. I don't care about most of the crap, but people who believe that God takes a position on whether oil pipelines should be built are dangerous.
Sure, I was already an Obama supporter. But I hadn't made a contribution to the general election yet, and this morning I maxed out. I hadn't done any work, and this afternoon I'll sign up to go to a swing state. So, thanks, Sarah Palin. You pushed me in the right direction.
Though I'm a steadfast non-believer, I grew up going to church and wince when religious people are belittled for their beliefs. So though I share my personal beliefs with a lot of the secular humanists on the Left, I really don't identify with them
Of course, the other side of this coin is the annoyance I had last night when I came to the realization that but for the efforts of the religious Right, John McCain would have probably won the nomination (and subsequently the election) in 2000, and the country and world would be a far better place. Maybe we would have still gone into Iraq under a President McCain, but I'm sure it would have been a more successful campaign from the outset. And a President McCain would have been more likely to use his veto power from the outset, another huge bonus.
As it stands, I think McCain's time has passed, and the country is no more socially conservative than it was in 2000. So the religious Right screwed us all for the sake of gay marriage, creationism, and abortion, and have almost nothing to show for it!
Or, for cryin' out loud, Ms. McArdle, get a clue: I can assure you that Harvard grads absolutely totally utterly do not think that our beloved rural knucklewalker friends out there East Bumhole or wherever are "not competent to run their own lives without a Yale man supervising things." Hell, that could only make things worse.
And now, back to my panini. Have you any Grey Poupon?
I'm so non-elite I misplaced the friggin apostrophe in Mudcat's last name.
But anyway. Anyone looking for a really good laugh should head over to Politico to read Roger Simon's (the journalist, not the screenwriter/PJ media guy) hilariously, pitiably bitchy and pathetically sarcastic "apology" for, excuse the hell out of him, just DOING HIS JOB, OK?
I wish I could type that tongue clicking/grunting thing that only women know how to do, that we learn to do when we're about 13, and that we use to preface everything we say to our parents. Because that's the tone of voice he takes in this piece. "Defensive?? I AM NOT DEFENSIVE! SCREW YOU,YOU DUMBASS REDNECK INBRED IDIOTS!"
I'm so non-elite I misplaced the friggin apostrophe in Mudcat's last name.
But anyway. Anyone looking for a really good laugh should head over to Politico to read Roger Simon's (the journalist, not the screenwriter/PJ media guy) hilariously, pitiably bitchy and pathetically sarcastic "apology" for, excuse the hell out of him, just DOING HIS JOB, OK?
I wish I could type that tongue clicking/grunting thing that only women know how to do, that we learn to do when we're about 13, and that we use to preface everything we say to our parents. Because that's the tone of voice he takes in this piece. "Defensive?? I AM NOT DEFENSIVE! SCREW YOU,YOU DUMBASS REDNECK INBRED IDIOTS!"
I grew up going to church and wince when religious people are belittled for their beliefs.
Is someone belittling church-going types for their beliefs or are the Republilcans screeching about this happening, even though it's not? Is Megan buying into the latter, repeating Republican talking points, advancing a loathsome narrative? Think hard. See why I think we're doomed?
Well, speaking as one of those folks from flyover country, I think Megan's had an important insight. I don't think some of you realize just how parochial you are. For people who purport to claim they love Obama because he promises to "bring us all together", I read an awful lot of condescension towards the Others from the heartland he's going to bring in. In this brave new world that Obama is supposed to bring, apparently some are more equal than others (to mix a couple of dystopian references.)
Look: I'm a red state guy who believes abortion is justifiable only to save a mother's life, that God is real and that Jesus is his son, that the 2nd amendment means individual rights, and that the 1st amendment is there to protect the church from state interference and not the other way around. I've also got degrees in philosophy and computer science, a PBK key, and an IQ in the neighborhood of the top 1% in the country. I exist. I'm not a stereotype, and I don't suffer from some bizarre cognitive dissonance. If you can't understand me, that's your problem; if you dismiss my existence, that's your mistake. And if you brush aside an insight like Megan's because it couldn't possibly be true, then no matter how cosmopolitan you consider yourself, then you're still seeing the reflections from your bubble which is growing distressingly small.
Now it's time to get back to work, so thank you for the chance to comment and run. I do, however, thank you for the insight and hope some of you will think twice about what Megan is saying. There is some "there" there. (And Megan, well done to consider the questions you have. I'm glad to see that life beyond Asymmetrical Information is working well. Get better.)
How ridiculous is Willkinson?
"I do not think politics is noble, and I deplore career politicians like Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden, and, yes, Hillary Clinton. I would in fact rather be ruled by competent small-town mayors than accomplished professional rent-seekers."
Palin has been in politics about as long as Obama (admittedly in much lower level jobs), but she's not a career politician?
I read an awful lot of condescension towards the Others from the heartland he's going to bring in...In this brave new world that Obama is supposed to bring, apparently some are more equal than others
Thanks for your concern, but can you give some specific examples, please? Thanks in advance.
Megan,
George W. Bush won every single one of these voters and their kids, parents, and friends, and beat Kerry by 3% of the vote. They are not a majority of the country, not even a plurality, even if they are close to the hearts of many people and seen by many as very special. If Palin's accomplishment is solidifying one important part of the Bush coalition in McCain's corner, then she has delivered the election to him, if
1) Every other part of the coalition is intact, including those east coast people who are socially moderate but liked that Bush "kept them safe" and
2) Obama, at best, only matches Kerry's turnout without doing any better at all in any other group.
Yes, Palin delivered a lot of conservative rural types, including many who don't think of themselves as conservative, who loved George W. Bush and were lukewarm on Cheney. But if you think this delivers the state of Iowa, you don't understand that the state is about much more than conservative white Christians growing corn in their small towns. There's a reason Obama was leading there by double digits in the CNN poll this week. They've got to do more than win over the people you've pegged as particularly special this week.
This guy, a real live libertarian-leaning type, per usual, gets it:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
"They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them."
Ouch. Bulls-eye.
I grew up going to church and wince when religious people are belittled for their beliefs.
They are mocked because they don't practice those beliefs. Would Jesus start unprovoked wars? Why do Republicans only care about babies until they are born? Joel Osteen doesn't believe in the Bible. The prosperity gospel? I think we all know what Jesus said about rich people. And Republicans have surely forgotten the golden rule.
Thanks for your concern, but can you give some specific examples, please? Thanks in advance.
Ed: If you'll allow me - I recall something someone was supposed to have said about bitterness, clinging, God and guns?
"They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them."
"Can we please have a moratorium on lefties deciding what makes a "real libertarian"?"
Umm, can we get a moratorium on rural conservatives and self-proclaimed libertarians telling me what I think?
Also, this idea that "we" want to rule "them": I mean, somebody is going to be in charge of a government; isn't it just as valid to say that a conservative candidate wants to rule me?
"Oh, but he won't tell you what to do!" Except what I can put in my body, who I can marry, what my daughter does with her body, and, if Sarah's in charge, what books I can and can't read.
Kate & Emily have my proxy on this one. I'm another Flyover girl with Ivy degrees now living the costal-elite life in NYC - which is, to back something Emily (and slarrow) said, the most small-minded place I've ever lived. From what I saw, Team Obama should be pretty frightened by Palin. If they don't understand why, that is exactly why.
I'm pretty agnostic about this election (in the relatively nice sense of not seeing impending disaster regardless who wins), but in my heart of hearts I'm sort of rooting for Obama. Maybe I drank the Cool-Aid. Now I'm worried enough about his chances that I may actually have to vote for him and risk my perfect record of never in my life having voted for a winning presidential candidate.
And, brooksfoe - I saw that Anderson Cooper bit this morning as well. Your characterization seems exactly right, though at the time I just noted his reaction was funny, in both the "weird" and "laughing at him not with him" senses. You're quite right about that cosmopolitan "un-American" paranoia, though. They (we?) seem to think it has to do with being educated, or artsy, or gay, or drinking lattes, when really the thing that sticks in the craw of most flyover people is the belief that they (we?) are somehow right or better and therefor deserve to boss everyone else around. Which actually is fairly un-American, come to think of it (and quite applies conservatives who want to impose their morals on me as well, for the record).
In fact, come to think of it, the first time I realized that people from working-class backgrounds in the Midwest (whom I'd never met before, having grown up in the East) were often really, really smart, politically skilled and hardworking was when I met lots of them attending Harvard.
This whole sneering bluebloods vs. salt of the Midwestern earth thing is like something out of a 1930s movie. It probably wasn't even a good picture of American society back then.
I grew up in the Midwest and went to college more or less with Obama (I didn't know him, but we overlapped for two years at Columbia). I was amazed at how provincial the East Coast Ivy Leaguers were! Many New Yorkers had never been more than 50 or 100 miles away from where they were born, yet were convinced that they knew the world, since they knew 'the city'. The kids from Boston felt that they were even more worldly-wise because they had traveled so very far for college, even farther than the kids from Long Island!
The people I grew up with in the Midwest didn't know much about the East Coast, either, but they were aware of that and interested in learning, while most Easterners were blatantly closed-minded. In the early 1980s, from some of Obama's classmates, I was asked if we had electricity yet in a US city of more than 100,000, and if we had heard of the Beatles yet.
Besides having gotten more or less the same undergraduate Ivy League education as Obama, I've also taught in both elite private universities and large Midwest state schools, and there's no noticeable difference in average intelligence. The Ivy League types have better manners, although they don't always choose to use them, while the state school students are better able to think for themselves.
The Ivy League type undergrads expect more hand-holding and want every last detail of every assignment spelled out. Hopefully they grow out of it - the MBAs aren't all that different - but the elite undergrads are noticeably sheltered and, yes, provincial in their thinking. In terms of intelligence, they're comparable to students at big state schools in the Midwest. I can teach the same material and give the same exams, and the only difference is that I have to simplify the major projects for the elite private schools, because the elite students flip out if every last step isn't dictated to them.
"Palin has been in politics about as long as Obama (admittedly in much lower level jobs), but she's not a career politician?"
Exactly Mr Crabby Pants. That's when you know someone is lying and full of BS. She's not a career politician because she says she's not a career politician. That's it. Believe her. Drink the koolaid.
Like Rove demeaning small towns until he didn't.
I'm always amazed at the way intelligent people can swallow this garbage and continue to make a straight face.
No sense of shame.
"By the way, I'm no "leftie". I'm a Realiy Based Jon Stewart/Onion Independent. So there. "
-Funniest thing I've read all morning - do you really think Stewart isn't a leftie? I still think he's damned funny and am happy to watch him, but come on.
"Abortion, sex education (and by extension federalism of local public education), same-sex marriage, abortion -- these sound pretty issuey to me."
Until your house is foreclosed on, your local bank fails and your job is shipped to India, that is. The Republicans use sex to distract people from the fact that they're being conned.
Look, elites like me have benefited enormously from the Bush administration. My NYC co-op has tripled in value, the more screw-ups there are on Wall Street the more work there is for corporate lawyers like me, I'm not being hammered by gas prices, I don't know anyone in Iraq and I probably never will, etc.
Palin is just another example of how the Republicans want people to vote their feelings so this administration can keep enriching themselves and their friends. And these people who vote their feelings may want to believe they're just as smart as people who went to Harvard, but you know what?
they're not.
Ed: If you'll allow me - I recall something someone was supposed to have said about bitterness, clinging, God and guns?
And you're not taking that out of context, right? Stop going all Megan on us, please. Thanks in advance.
Ann,
while your Horatio Alger sentiments are charming and politically correct, are we really required to assert that the student body at SUNY-New Paltz is, on average, just as smart as the student body at Yale?
Because that hasn't been my experience. Sorry. You can argue that Ivy League prestige is radically overrated, which it is, without going so far as to argue that students at mediocre state schools are just as smart on average as students at the most competitive universities in the country, which they aren't.
"By the way, I'm no "leftie". I'm a Realiy Based Jon Stewart/Onion Independent. So there.
Posted by ed | September 4, 2008 1:32 PM "
Note to Ed:
Anyone who uses 'Reality Based' without laughing out loud, or thinks Stewart is an Independent is a leftie.
-Funniest thing I've read all morning - do you really think Stewart isn't a leftie? I still think he's damned funny and am happy to watch him, but come on.
I'm glad you find JStew amusing, but that does surprise me. You seem, like Megan, to be ironically challenged.
Note to Ed:
Anyone who uses 'Reality Based' without laughing out loud, or thinks Stewart is an Independent is a leftie.
Note to Tom:
But I saidI wasn't a leftie. Ergo, by Megan's standards, I cannot be a leftie. Can you dig it? Can you count? Sucka...
(Also, I didn't choose "Reality Based", it was hung on my by a deadly serious Karl Rove. And that's the truth. Thanks again for the Iraq Invasion. It's awesome.)
Oh, come on. Palin is way far out there in her poltics. Rual voters are not stupid. Anyone can see that Palin indeed does not have more experience than Obama and Biden. The far right wing can say this as many times as they want but it will not sell. The idea that rual women would support a "hockey mom" even if she did not believe in equal pay for women is crazy.
The Palin choice has put the judgement of McCain into question that even in rual america.
"Sure, I was already an Obama supporter."
Then, frankly, nobody's making speeches for you, so you shouldn't expect them to appeal to you, or even take steps to avoid offending you.
Megan,
Can you give us a one-liner on how Mama McArdle made each of her presidential picks? My own mother is, at last check, an African-American PUMA, so I'm not looking to point fingers. Just curious.
Who thinks that we deserve to rule them? Not me. Here is where you fail, Megan. You think it's fine to speak about us in generalizations and stereotypes, and not about them. Again and again and again, you refuse to extend to them the same level of criticism and discrimination that you extend to us. That's not respect, it's condescension, and you're smart enough to know the difference.
We can all stop swooning (with fear or excitement) over Palin because her first approval ratings are not that great.
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/cbs_palin_favorable_rating_912.php
Favorable 14% ... Obama BTW is in the 55-60% range, as is McCain.
Don't know enough 45%. Plenty of time for Obama (on Bill O'Reilly tonight) and Biden to knock the sheen off her halo. Remember, as a good VP candidate, she now has to play second fiddle. Will that be easy for a heroine?
Split the 45% 50-50 would give her a rating of 37%.
The Republicans use sex to distract people from the fact that they're being conned.
Then the obvious answer is for the Democrats to simply concede the "sex issues" to Republicans, taking them off the table, and then win easily on the others.
The facts that the Democrats do not do so is evidence that the sex issues are real issues.
are we really required to assert that the student body at SUNY-New Paltz is, on average, just as smart as the student body at Yale?
The student body at Yale is going to be stupid in different ways that the SUNY student body (one of them being an unjustified belief in their own brilliance and worldliness). We don't merely over-value "prestige," we over-value "smart" and under-value other things such as decency and good moral character.
"And damn straight: people who study at the University of Idaho (which is, in fact, where my sister is currently studying law) are every bit as smart as all you snide elitist Ivy League cosmoplitans!"
I don't think this is true. Ivy Leagues are overrated, certainly, but that's somewhat of a bold and unwarranted statement. His sister would probably get a better law education at a better law school.
Of course, he could be sarcastic here. My meter is broken.
"That she almost succeeded in this is astounding, and I think hugely to her credit."
Actually, I think it says more about the condition of the Democratic Party......
The Palin phenomenon is hilarious for how it was played by our urban elites. Their media wing went on a full-blown attack after pursuing the reporting demands of all the leftist activists with street cred. Megan's colleague is a perfect example of the slime they were trying to push.
The expectations for Palin were in the sub-basement before the speech!
Contrast that with the media roll-out of VP pick Joe Biden, each story listing the fact that "he rides Amtrack home every day" as a grand model accomplishment. They also gushed over the fact that Biden's a life-long, inside-the-Beltway career politician. And during the Dem convention they repeated the claim that McCain was out of touch.
The chattering classes inside the Beltway are out of touch with the way the rest of the nation lives.
So, Diana, the premises of your argument are:
1) Flyover Americans are so ignorant they can't identify and vote their own interests, even though they should; they are deluded by the Republicans.
2) Coastal Elite Americans are so enlightened that they can reliably identify everyone's interests, but they're so moral that they're willing to vote against their own interests in favor of ignorant Flyover Americans.
The interesting thing is that constitutes the self-justification of every ruling class in history. And in every one of those cases, it is clear that the ruling class actually ruled in their own perceived self-interest, not for the benefit of the ruled.
brooksfoe: At the risk of continuing any "my college is better than/just as good as your college" BS, I agree with your comment that, on average, Harvard students are academically smarter than, say, SUNY students, though the degree of difference is not nearly as great as the Ivy kids (or parents) would like to believe. As I'm sure you have, I've met morons from Harvard and people as smart as anyone I've ever met from public colleges, but if I had to bet on IQ test outcomes, I'd put my money on the Harvard grad. Even if "inherent" ability is the same (which I don't even plan to consider), the kids pumped through the elite system are groomed like hell, and it does greatly effect their preparation and ability to do university level academic work.
However, I also have to note that Ann is, by my experience, quite right that the Ivy students are more parochial and need a lot more hand-holding. Side effect of the grooming, perhaps.
I'm not sure about "open minded" - a lot of Ivy students assume they're smarter than everyone else and that the sun shines out of their butts, but they also tend to be more ready to question what they are told (by books, profs or anyone else), perhaps exactly for that reason. Key distinction: they challenge what they are told, not their own beliefs. I've yet to find a 19 year old anywhere who does that. Or many 40 year olds, for that matter.
Anyhow. Being pretty uselessly overeducated myself, I've got a lot of sympathy for the idea that the "best and the brightest" should lead us and that a bright and shiny education is a decent proxy for "best and brightest". I'm just amused that a lot of the best and brightest don't seem smart enough to realize that those whose education didn't include sufficient Latin to translate their diplomas (i) often don't agree and (ii) make up a big majority of voters. Book-smart does not, in my experience, correlate with increased common sense.
Brooksfoe -
To be fair, I'm comparing seniors in one of the more selective majors. Incoming freshmen have better qualifications at the elite schools, but those schools also pride themselves on low drop out rates, and so they hold the hands of the students throughout. In state schools, it's more sink-or-swim, and I've only taught the ones that made it to their senior year and had the grades to get into one of the most selective majors.
So, there's a selection bias to my sample. For that sample, the only difference I've seen is that students at the top schools get very nervous if they don't receive detailed, step-by-step guidance, because they've always had it. At state schools, on the other hand, either they've learned to work it out for themselves, or they're not there after 4 years.
" ...They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them...."
Amen! I think Megan hit the nail squarely on the head.
I'm reminded of William F. Buckley's famous comment that he would rather be ruled by 100 people randomly selected from the Boston phone directory than by the faculty of Harvard University.
Personally, I would much rather be ruled by a randomly selected small-town mayor or small-state governor than by any combination of Washington insiders and/or Ivy League graduates. And I say that as someone with a foot in each camp: I have a PhD from a prestige university, and yet I live by choice in a small town in flyover country and go deer hunting at every opportunity.
I had been planning to either stay home or vote for Barr. But with Palin on the ticket, I just might hold my nose and support McCain after all.
I love it when self-styled self-conscious Eastern media elites like Megan lecture whom they deem to be their less-self-conscious Eastern media elite friends, like us, about what people in smaller towns or rural areas think about politics etc with absolute, righteous confidence based on what two or three of their friends *with whom they went to upper crust colleges but who happen to be from such places* say.
But then Megan goes further. "Sarah Palin just delivered that vote, in Wisconsin and Iowa and Ohio and Western New York," says she.
Did her contacts tell her that their vote was delivered? And to whom is it delivered? Sarah Palin? Megan writes as though there isn't a two-month campaign left to fight between John McCain and Barack Obama. Sarah Palin has one more night to shine. And she will shine in her debate. She won't win, but her absolute-zero expectations will cause everyone do declare her to have. Between now and then and from the next day to the election, this particular Wisconsin-dwelling Eastern-elite sympathizer has enough respect for 'rural identity' citizens to presume that they will vote based on the candidate for president, not vice president.
If Megan wants to post on why she thinks McCain will get their votes, she should. But to simply declare their votes delivered on the strength of identity politics in the vice presdidential selection is the height of the elite condescension she pretends to scold us for.
Beyond all of which: we all know Megan's voting intention. The self-hate gets a little transparent after four or five such posts.
Freddie, just read Diana's post. How much time and effort have you spent denouncing people like her? More importantly, how much time does the American coastal left, as a whole, spend denouncing people like her and Thomas "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Frank?
Uh-huh.
So, you don't actually think you deserve to rule? Go ahead, rip Diana a new one.
[Because I'm an Obama supporter] Then, frankly, nobody's making speeches for you, so you shouldn't expect them to appeal to you, or even take steps to avoid offending you.
I don't expect Republicans to try to appeal to me, Lunatic. I did expect that I'd like Palin- she's a gutsy, hardworking woman. But instead of finding her appealing, I wanted to smash her mean-girl face in.
Even when I don't agree politically with speakers, sometimes I like them. When I watched Meg Whitman's speech last night I found her likable and wondered why McCain didn't pick her. (After Palin's speech, though, it was clear why Whitman or someone like her wasn't picked. McCain is going after the base, not the swing voters.)
Comments like Diana's seem based on a self-congratulatory premise: If the fly-over rubes actually were so bright, they'd move to the urban coasts and get into top-flight academia, preferably by spending years in pursuit of multiple higher degrees. The mere fact that those rubes are perfectly content to remain in fly-over land is proof positive of their insufficiency.
[Because I'm an Obama supporter] Then, frankly, nobody's making speeches for you, so you shouldn't expect them to appeal to you, or even take steps to avoid offending you.
I don't expect Republicans to try to appeal to me, Lunatic. I did expect that I'd like Palin- she's a gutsy, hardworking woman. But instead of finding her appealing, I wanted to smash her mean-girl face in.
Even when I don't agree politically with speakers, sometimes I like them. When I watched Meg Whitman's speech last night I found her likable and wondered why McCain didn't pick her. (After Palin's speech, though, it was clear why Whitman or someone like her wasn't picked. McCain is going after the base, not the swing voters.)
I'm reminded of William F. Buckley's famous comment that he would rather be ruled by 100 people randomly selected from the Boston phone directory than by the faculty of Harvard University.
And I'm reminded that Mr. Buckley was a pampered ultra-rich elitist who staunchly hated gay people and racial integration (his money-losing, pro-capitalism magazine was founded in part because of the latter). I'm also reminded that Mr. Buckley was given to making ludicrous statements with the purpuse of making him sound like a tough, no nonsense, regular guy. What's truly remarkable is not so much that anyove ever bought that bulljive as much as people still do (e.g., George Bush, Jr.).
"They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them."
We do. They're fucking stupid.
MarkG: The tied with Jon Stewart/Onion for funniest post so far, thanks.
I'm reminded of a friend who was complaining over drinks one night that people in our line of business outside of NYC were idiot slackers, who went home for dinner and didn't work weekends and basically were stupid and lazy, leaving him to do all the real work on his deals. I said "you mean the guys in Houston or St. Louis, who make roughly the same amount we do or a lot more after cost of living, are going home at 6 to their nice big houses and back yards (that cost a fraction of what your apartment did) and seeing their kids and friends, while you stay all night doing work they should be doing?" And he said yes and I asked "and how are they stupid again?"
His wife nearly choked to death laughing, but he was less amused.
"They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them."
No they hate us because they have to rely on our federal taxes and they get angry when we want some influence on policies that our taxes pay for.
"They're all libertarian. They're all male. They all liked her. "
Palin is in favor of massive state intervention in personal lives and massive pork barrel spending by government. If your friends want to be libertarians, maybe they should find someone to run their lives for them in a libertarian manner, because they don't seem capable of doing it themselves.
...people who didn't go to Ivy League schools that Harvard grads think they're not quite bright, and definitely not competent to run their own lives without a Yale man supervising things. And they're entirely right that a lot of Ivy League grads do think this way, consciously or unconsciously.
While I understand what you mean, I want to add, just for the record, that I am one Harvard grad who hasno problem whatsoever agreeing that graduates of non-Ivy league colleges can be perfectly capable of running the country (with the exception of Joe Biden). In fact, now that the candidates are starting to be about my own age [I'm older than Palin, younger than Obama], I think I'd prefer that none of the fools I remember as undergraduates ever get into the White House.
Examples of people being sneered at for their religious beliefs abound. My favorite commonplace example is the Darwin fish with legs that people put on their cars. Or the new version, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I consider both to be pretty rude, and I'm not a Christian.
Yes, the culture war is in full swing. It's an evolutionarily deep tendency that kicks when people are given either-or choices. I'm afraid reason doesn't and won't ever trump that as long as we're human.
This sounds like Obama's God and guns comment.
Ed: there is only one possible context in which to take Obama's bitter clingy God and guns rubes line, and if you claim that there is not, you're either lying or nowhere near as intelligent as you seem to think you are.
, I think I'd prefer that none of the fools I remember as undergraduates ever get into the White House.
Posted by TMA | September 4, 2008 4:06 PM
Except for Obamessiah of course...
I'm a registered independent. I went to an elite eastern school but I'm far from a "latte drinking liberal." Ideologically, I'm moderate. My spouse is conservative and from a blue-collar family. We are in the VA area now but we're considering moving further South.
I've spent the last few months watching the election with some interest, but not fully committing to anything. At one point, I could see myself voting for McCain, Clinton, or Obama.
Last night's RNC convention shocked me. Mitt Romney's war declarations were scary, Rudy Guiliani claims that you're either "for the war in Iraq, or unpatriotic" were disheartening, and Huckabee's mockery of European ally-building was downright bizarre. Their words seemed completely at odds with Joe Lieberman's claims that the GOP is all about bi-partisan unity.
I was also disheartened by the lack of racial diversity. How can the mantra of the GOP be change, country first, and reform... when people of color are not represented? Our minority population is at 33%... so where were they last night, whether they be delegates, alternates, or general audience members? On Wednesday, Michael Steele (one of the night's speakers) noted with disappointment that only 1.5% of the delegates (or 36 total) were African Americans... that's the lowest number since 1968.
Sarah Palin stunned and upset me. How can you claim country first and national solidarity... but then unleash a string of divisive attacks aimed at deciding who is a true American and who is not? Mocking environmental concerns and civil liberties? Community organizing? Reducing oil problems to "drill now, figure something out later?" Where are the issues? Where's the policy? Where are the solutions?
But, I get it. This speech wasn't designed to sway moderate-independent voters like me. McCain could give a damn about my vote and he outlined that to me last night.
Ed: there is only one possible context in which to take Obama's bitter clingy God and guns rubes line, and if you claim that there is not, you're either lying or nowhere near as intelligent as you seem to think you are.
Palin looks a lot like Bush to me. Religious right bona fides: check. Demands absolute loyalty: check. She's like a way more attractive and admittedly less crazy Christian Ahmadinejad. I don't understand why classical liberal American atheists would be any less frightened of her than they are or GWB--except it is highly unlikely she will be President since I doubt McCain will win a second term (I'm pretty sure he's going to win a first one and have been for some time and it has nothing to do with Palin.) I will give Palin this: she is very charismatic and I agree with Will Wilkinson. I'd rather get bossed around by a hot chick than an old dick.
LDK...Thats why we own guns.
Ed: there is only one possible context in which to take Obama's bitter clingy God and guns rubes line, and if you claim that there is not, you're either lying or nowhere near as intelligent as you seem to think you are.
Apart from the initial thought of "wow, the Republican party should never complain about identity politics ever again", I have to say ...
What, George appointed-by-God Bush didn't think he deserved to rule us? Dick Cheney? People on both sides think they deserve to rule us. What do you think the entire conceit of the "Real American" is? It's pretending the views of a rural farmer are somehow more important than a coastal elite; that the former deserves to dictate policy - rule us - in a way that the latter doesn't.
But, you know what? Can everyone, left and right, grow up? People aren't going to like you; they're going to think they're better than you. Electing people on the basis of who soothes your feelings and and insults <group you don't like> more is a terrible idea.
This isn't to take the apparent Thomas Frank position, necessarily. The idea that people "cling" to guns, god, and gays is silly; they're important to people. They're of course being exploited dishonestly (how many anti-gay-marriage measures has Virginia passed?) but that's basically politics.
I'm male, I'm a libertarian, and while I didn't watch the speech, I think I can safely assume that it probably sucked, and I'm not impressed with Mrs. Palin in the least.
But I'm an unabashed elitist who really doesn't give a shit what plays to the burger-and-fries, pickup-truck-drivin' and invisible-friend-worshipping band of yokels making up this country's interior.
So maybe that balances out Ms. McArdle's non-random sampling of male libertarian views.
"They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them."
They hate you because you are weak and complain and display low levels of commitment to a greater cause. Moreover, most white urbanites appear to be generally weak.
there is only one possible context in which to take Obama's bitter clingy God and guns rubes line
And what context would that be? Megan's libertarian friend pretty much reiterated Obama's assessment. I found it to be pretty much on the dot both times. Palin's selection is a fall back on that Republican safe zone called the culture war.
Ed: there is only one possible context in which to take Obama's bitter clingy God and guns rubes line, and if you claim that there is not, you're either lying or nowhere near as intelligent as you seem to think you are.
Shorter stubby: anyone who doesn't see the world through the same prism as I do is a dum-dum; no tagbacks infinity.
Jeff, Palin wasn't going for the purse-carrying homo crowd, so it's good you didn't waste your time watching the speech.
Hugs!
Christina, anyone is welcome to believe what they want. Its when people want to curb my rights or go to war because that's what they think Santa Claus wants them to do that I feel free to sneer.
See, e.g., this piece from October 8, 1992:
Voters in Wasilla bucked tradition Tuesday and, by a slim margin, approved plans to start a police department financed by the city's first-ever sales tax. "I'd feel safer saying this if the margin was wider, but I think Wasilla finally sees the light. People see the need for change," said Sarah Palin, 28. Palin, a political newcomer, was one of two supporters of the police-sales tax plan elected to the city council Tuesday. Though his name...
There are at least 4 other articles in the Anchorage Daily News mentioning her name before the one Glenn Greenwald managed to find. Plus one mentioning her by her maiden name, Sarah Heath, as far back as 1988.
Or the new version, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I consider both to be pretty rude, and I'm not a Christian.
Neither of those symbols is mocking people's sincerely held religious beliefs. Rather, they are mocking the desire of people who hold those sincere beliefs to jam them down my throat.
Consider the genesis of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was invented in response to the disingenous claim of Kansas creationists that their creationist fables were not at all religious, but were instead scientific and should be taught in school. So someone said, If your creation story should be taught in science class, so should my story that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world be taught in science class.
Cardinal Fang writes: "If your creation story should be taught in science class, so should my story that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world be taught in science class."
The Flying Spaghetti Monster is just as plausible as the Hebrew War God, and it has a much more pleasant personality.
It has been my experience, having attended a "mediocre" state university in a flyover state, and an "elite" law school on the east coast, that both places had their fair share of morons and bright kids. In fact, it was in law school that I stopped valuing intelligence alone as a virtue and replaced it with something more akin to thoughtfulness and curiosity, which I've found make people more interesting and competent than a monstrous IQ anyway. And with that as a guide, again, I'd argue that you find thoughtful/curious folks both places.
[I promise this is relevant to the post -- really trying to avoid a "my college is smarter than yours argument", but I find this issue interesting... please read to the end of my comment before pouncing.]
However.
This debate is about how people in flyovers often feel or perceive that coastal elites look down their noses at them. Some do, some don't -- the comments above demonstrate both sides of that. That perception colors their voting, because how many times would you vote for someone who you believed thought you were stupid?
The problem elite attitudes on education is thus: accepting that there are idiots at Harvard and idiots at the University of Idaho, and accepting that there are brilliant, hard-working, thoughtful people both places, doesn't it behoove the national parties and the media to recruit from both (using Harvard and U of Idaho obviously as placemarkers for the broader cultures they represent)? Too often an Ivy League education is used as a proxy for intelligence, whereas someone who graduated top of their class from a state university still has to prove that they are as smart as even a mediocre student at Yale.
And when you become used to having to prove to coastal elites that you are just as smart or worthy as they are, but they take it as a given that you will accept their superiority by virtue of having attended an elite institutions, you develop a resentment. That resentment has created a vacuum the Republicans often use to their advantage. That vacuum is currently occupied by Sarah Palin (who belongs there at least more than George W. Bush).
Instead of shaking their heads and thinking, boy those flyovers sure can be hoodwinked into anything, the Democrats be filling that vacuum with substance. I've been cheered this year by both Howard Dean's 50 state strategy and Obama's efforts in the West -- in recent years Dems have just written off Western voters despite the fact that as recently as the 80s and 90s, plenty of Dem candidates did well there.
But it's not enough. If you want Westerners to stop feeling like you think think you're smarter and better equipped to rule them.... then start promoting people in the party who were born and raised in flyover states and got great educations and state schools and have demonstrated their excellence through service and entrepreneurship. There are a LOT of them, not that you'd know looking at the leadership of the party. That's why kids in Nebraska like seeing Sarah Palin on a ticket and get pretty tired of John Kerry.
Response to the idea that one can actually get a good education at the University of Idaho:
I don't think this is true. Ivy Leagues are overrated, certainly, but that's somewhat of a bold and unwarranted statement. His sister would probably get a better law education at a better law school.
I hold degrees from both Cornell (B.S.) and the University of Idaho (J.D.).
I got a better education at Idaho. The professors were far more interested in teaching than they were in researching; hence, they were much better teachers.
Not to say that I didn't have excellent professors at Cornell -- I did have some. But the difference between education at an Ivy League university and education at a typical state university is not so great as people seem to believe.
And by the way -- whatever the rankings might say, UI has an excellent law school. Especially if you want to practice in Idaho, since a lot of law schools don't bother with water law, and water law is one of the subjects that's always on the Idaho bar.
Response to the idea that one can actually get a good education at the University of Idaho:
I don't think this is true. Ivy Leagues are overrated, certainly, but that's somewhat of a bold and unwarranted statement. His sister would probably get a better law education at a better law school.
I hold degrees from both Cornell (B.S.) and the University of Idaho (J.D.).
I got a better education at Idaho. The professors were far more interested in teaching than they were in researching; hence, they were much better teachers.
Not to say that I didn't have excellent professors at Cornell -- I did have some. But the difference between education at an Ivy League university and education at a typical state university is not so great as people seem to believe.
And by the way -- whatever the rankings might say, UI has an excellent law school. Especially if you want to practice in Idaho, since a lot of law schools don't bother with water law, and water law is one of the subjects that's always on the Idaho bar.
it's time for obama campaign to push more forward.otherwise they will have same fate of kerry and al gore.
What Cardinal Fang said: the Flying Spaghetti Monster can only be an insult to religious belief if intelligent design pushers are lying about intelligent design being a religious belief. Otherwise, the Flying Spaghetti Monster has every bit as much scientific validity as any other form of intelligent design.
That said, I see a heck of a lot of offensive dismissal of people with religious beliefs, too. I agree that the fish with feet is fairly rude as it takes a Christian (but not creationist) symbol and mucks it about. Funny, but rude. Particularly to Christians who don't buy creationism, by implicitly lumping them in with those who do.
Random question: is Inherit the Wind still a high-school theater standard, or was it a casualty of the last round of the culture wars?
I do not know if anyone bothers reading the 105th comment on a post, but here goes . . .
Certainly Palin very skillfully played the culture wars, demonizing the elite, etc., last night.
The problem is that the "rationality" gap between the two parties is uniquely huge this year. If you judge political parties based on their actions, not their deeds, the Republicans are the party of big spending, big borrowing, and foreign military entanglements.
The Republican Party used to have some degree of self-correction for these factors. Reagan did readjust his tax cuts after the wave of deficits, for example. Bush 41 was interested in policy, not just politics.
Now, however, the populist impulse drives out rational policy discussion at all times, not just at election time. Bush 43 is great at divisive culture wars, but terrible at actually governing.
Palin, I'm afraid, is even worse than Bush 43 on that score. Divisive culture wars are not merely a means to an end, but the end in and of itself.
A great political party has been taken over from within by people who are more interested in destroying their liberal enemies than they are in actual governance.
That's what scares me.
How can a governor with an 80% approval rating be an extremist? Unless extremist is shorthand for extremely popular, she's simply can't be too far out of the (Alaskan) mainstream. Hell, an 80 % approval rating defines the mainstream.
Is the Alaskan polity than non-representative of the rest of the country?
In that case, we should definitely lower Federal taxes.
Could this be any more confused? I saw a satirical video recently that also has a serious case of demographic dyslexia.
Booksmarts and execution competence are very different things. Harvard students are good at reading, writing (to some degree...) and often coming up with inventive interpretations of literature and history. Executive competence and leadership are another matter completely.
The idea that Obama voters aren't voting their feelings? Priceless. I have asked a slew of (mostly Harvard-educated*) Obama voters why they favor him and I have yet to get a coherent answer. Most of them feel, at bottom, that he....shares their values. I don't think they are stupid to use that criterion, although a bit more enthusiastic endorsement of the few policies he's been explicit about (tax, national service) would be nice.
I'm male, white, conservative. I was raised in lower middle class home in small southern town and worked hard to get into an Ivy league school and currently work in NYC. There was certainly a lot of condescension from "coastal elites" at college, just as there was a lot of small minded prejudice in the town I came from. I don't romanticize either. My conservatism was always based on an unabashed embrace of a certain kind of elitist achievement: people who worked hard should be rewarded. I was constantly confronted with the manifest mediocrity one would see from all types of affirmative action: legacy kids and--yes--admission policies designed to represent racial and geographic diversity. To be honest, a white kid from small-population North Dakota had to be the stupidest, least qualified person I met at school. Asians were, of course, incredibly accom[plished, and suffered more from "affirmative action" than whites.
In any case, it's ridiculous to assert that, by and large, a school with higher admissions standards and more applicants is just as good as State U. To say something like that sounds like someone from a fancy NY prep school who went to an elite college trying to sound like they're down with the NASCAR crowd. You know what, a lot of people from NAscar land hate Nascar. What's more? A lot of these idyllic small towns are depressed, sad, and boring places to live, and a lot of state schools are filled with dumb people more interested in parties than scholarship (with a small number of exceptional students who couldn't afford to go somewhere better).
Anyway, I liked the Republican party a lot better when they were elitists about qualifications, and that is where this Palin pick really bugs me. Can you honestly say, in spite of how well she delivers a speech, that she's prepared to lead the nation? I don't care how many people "identify" with her--that's an idiotic reason to hire someone for a job, particularly the second most important job in the world. This pick is not only offensive to the more qualified women in the Republican Party, it's offensive to all people who believe that people should be promoted on their merits. Whatever one says about Obama, they guy put together a campaign, ran in a primary, and against long odds won his party's primary. I'm still confused about what Palin's actually accomplished and I'm frankly embarrassed for all the pundits who are lying through their teeth trying to justify her inclusion on the ticket.
Last time around we voted in a legacy candidate with demonstrable intellectual weaknesses. Palin may be brighter, but I want the leader of the free world to have a little more curiosity and ambition than is contained by the corridor between small town Alaska, the University of Idaho, and "big city" Alaska. Maybe I'm just a coastal elite now, but it seems to me like experience and competence used to be a universal value.
"Random question: is Inherit the Wind still a high-school theater standard, or was it a casualty of the last round of the culture wars?"
It's a great play, as fiction. The problem is that people get confused into thinking that it's historically accurate, when it clearly isn't.
"If you want Westerners to stop feeling like you think think you're smarter and better equipped to rule them.... then start promoting people in the party who were born and raised in flyover states..."
Like Gore, Clinton, Mondale, Carter, McGovern, Humphrey and Johnson?
As for education, the colleges are on the coasts. It is simply a matter of probability that someone will go to school there. There are probably more college students in either the Boston or Philadelphia metropolitan areas than in the entire Mountain Time zone.
The truth is that the Democratic party has disproportionately promoted its members from outside the Northeast. It has had to do this because ridiculous "anti-elitism" is significantly more real than any elitism.
My favorite commonplace example is the Darwin fish with legs that people put on their cars.
Right, but that's a response to Christians putting the Ichthys on their cars.
And, don't worry, the Christians have their own rebuttal - the Ichthys eating the Darwin fish.
I don't see how one can be insulting if the others aren't; unless, of course, you're starting from the false premise that religious beliefs or positions are immune to challenge, simply by being religious.
I don't see how one can be insulting if the others aren't;
I don't see where the fish by itself insults anyone, or requires a response of any kind.
The "truth" fish eating the Darwin fish, that creeps me out.
"Read what the independents in this focus group had to say about Palin's speech. Hint: it's not pretty.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080903/NEWS15/80904002 "
Except, oops, they're not actually independents, they're Code Pink members:
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2008/09/dont-look-now-a.html
"In any case, it's ridiculous to assert that, by and large, a school with higher admissions standards and more applicants is just as good as State U."
I don't know whether you're referring to my earlier comment, but I was comparing the students that I have taught at various schools. I've taught the very same class, with the same exams, at an elite private university and a huge public university with virtually-nonexistent admission standards (although the admission standards for the major that would get them into my class were fairly high, based on their grades during their first two years). The top seniors weren't particularly different, and in fact the overall mix in my classes was comparable. Someone who knows what they're doing can get an outstanding education at a big state school, although the downside to a 'sink or swim' environment is greater. At least they had their chance, though.
"a lot of state schools are filled with dumb people more interested in parties than scholarship (with a small number of exceptional students who couldn't afford to go somewhere better)."
A lot of top schools have sizable portions of students that just waste their parents' money by partying and doing drugs, and that includes Columbia when Obama was there (Ivy students aren't very good at partying, so they trick their brains with drug induced pseudo-fun instead).
And it's nonsense to think that the only reason an exceptional student would go to, say, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is because he/she couldn't afford anything else. Based on what I saw of the students, I'd send my children there over Columbia any day.
In the Netherlands anyone who has the grades to go to university can attend whichever university they want. There are no "elite schools" in an academic sense.
I have found this system extremely confusing, I must confess. As far as I can tell, the result is that social-class clustering takes place through highly selective fraternities/sororities rather than through academic selection.
A lot of top schools have sizable portions of students that just waste their parents' money by partying and doing drugs,
Ann, don't you think you're applying something of a double standard here? You really think partying and doing drugs is more pervasive at Columbia than at Arizona State? I've seen a couple of, um, community-based film projects focusing on young women engaged in high-risk behaviors that suggest this is not necessarily the case.
Oh, wait, I see you're responding to the opposite contention. Okay, no double standard.
re "They hate us because we act like we think we deserve to rule them."
They don't hate you but they DO resent you for just that reason. From their actions, if not their words, they want more than anything to be left alone. They work hard for their jack. And they resent its being seized and spent by far wealthier policy wonks, bureaucrats and politicos on schemes & projects contrary to their most basic beliefs.
The masses are ignorant cabbages on matters of theory and policy. But they're pretty good at figuring out how to go about their daily lives. Call it bounded competence. When someone with no skin in their game starts ordering them around they don't like it one bit. Neither, I suspect, do you or other members of the eastern elite. They don't cotton to being treated as objects in some ivy leaguer's great policy machine.
In Palin, they found a champion who seems to get those things. In Obama, they see someone who doesn't. They see BO as another self-important, vacuous hack who wants to jerk them around for his own esoteric and, to them, meaningless purposes.
Palin knows how to communicate, connect and project. Her problem is that she's no Thatcher (the most consistently underrated political leader of the past 100 yrs) on matters of policy. But in elections that doesn't matter. In fact, voters don't reward leaders for good policy. They don't know what it is. And they end up rejecting leaders who make tough, unpopular decisions that result in longer term prosperity (e.g. Thatcher and Roger Douglas in NZ.)
Bottom line: Barring some awkward new surprise (e.g. Palin elopes with Hugo Chavez or emits some massive freudian slip* in an interview with Katie Couric) McCain just won the election. Palin is a closer. And she knows it. She's such an impressive gal that I really hate to see her head into the maws of the DC monster. Wish she was rising in the ranks of Exxon, Dow Chemical or Intel where she might actually do some good. Why do people think that politics, despite all evidence to the contrary, is where the real action is?
*Classic freudian slip joke: I’ve been making a lot of Freudian slips lately,” a man says to his friend. “Like what?” asks his buddy. “Well, last week I asked the train conductor for two pickets to Tittsburgh.” “I did something similar the other day,” says the friend. “My wife and I were having breakfast, and instead of saying, ‘Honey, please pass the butter,’ I said, ‘You bitch—you ruined my life!’”
My kids are college-bound, and being white, middle-class and lacking victim stories--they can't get into my alma mater, or even the UCs. So, one is studying in Hungary and the other is white-knuckling it for art school.
My Ivy degree is very old--before the new SATs and grade inflation--and I'd say, yes, my classmates, the non-legacy ones at least (all male, which dates me) were probably brighter than your average State U student.
But today--it's all about status (movie star kids, rich kids, media kids) or a charmingly gritty tale of up from under, against all odds, told by someone picturesque, sorrowful and nonwhite.
Ann quotes and writes: ""Random question: is Inherit the Wind still a high-school theater standard, or was it a casualty of the last round of the culture wars?"
It's a great play, as fiction. The problem is that people get confused into thinking that it's historically accurate, when it clearly isn't. "
I'm not sure who ever claimed it was accurate as history, but I guess that's just another conservative tossing out another straw man.
For one thing the movie/play makes the townspeople of Dayton look a whole lot less ignorant and backwards than they actually were. I recommend Mencken's great dispatches for anyone who is interested.
"Yeah, easy for her to sneer at community organizers, who work to register voters and get the streets paved. What need has she for community organizers--"
You know what a "community organizer" is?
A community organizer is one of those skinny little pencil-necked badly-dressed Urkel-looking dweebs who comes around to your front door, clipboard in hand, right as you are sitting down to dinner or dealing with some emergency, and tries to get you to sign a petition to Save The Whales or some goddamn thing.
And he's paid by a group of sonsabitches like ACORN.
Average Americans with a particle of sense can't stand them.
Obama was paid by a "group of sonsabitches" like the Catholic Church. He worked for a group of churches.
Re: From their actions, if not their words, they want more than anything to be left alone.
This may be true of some folks, maybe even a lot of folks, but there's a sizable contingent within the GOP that is not willing to leave others alone, but instead wants to pass all sorts of morals legislation governing the most intimate details of people's lives. Having an extra twenty bucks come out of your paycheck in taxes is pretty trivial (especially if you get something worthwhile, like healthcare, in return) compared to having cops breaking down your door because you're sleeping with someone the neo-Prudes do not approve of.
Re: Bottom line: Barring some awkward new surprise (e.g. Palin elopes with Hugo Chavez or emits some massive freudian slip* in an interview with Katie Couric) McCain just won the election.
Palin appeals-- strongly-- to the GOP base. That base is not big enough to win McCain the election no matter how enthused they get. (Unless they become so enthused that they commit massive vote fraud). Palin's appeal to non-GOPers is very limited. McCain has made the same mistake during this entire election season: he has bought into Rovism ("Only the base matters") at precisely the time that that advice is obsolete. If the McCain 2000 were running-- if he had picked someone to appeal to the rest of the population while telling the base to sit down shut up and get with the program-- he might have the election sewed up. Instead he, and Sarah Palin, are running as the duly anointed heirs of the House of Bush.
"Inherit the Wind" is a poor play and wretched history. Mencken's Scopes Trial journalism reads like the work of a clever snob; it was. Anyone who wants to know what happened in the real world can read the excellent and ignored and superbly annotated "The Great Monkey Trial" by L. Sprague de Camp. Anyone who wants to understand why Republicans still get votes can read Mencken and ask themselves, "What if I was reading this about my home, and my family and friends?"
(ref. Ann & MoeLarryAndJesus, above)
Janus Daniels writes: "Anyone who wants to understand why Republicans still get votes can read Mencken and ask themselves, "What if I was reading this about my home, and my family and friends?""
Mencken was just as scathing about FDR. And he was right about fundamentalism - it's the religious choice of morons, then and now.
I understand people are starving for a new breed of politician, and I see how Palin connects some of those dots. That connection is powerful. But people also don't like to feel manipulated, and I can tell you there's a measure of this with the Palin nomination as well.
Bill Clinton was a Rhodes scholer, but seemed like a Bubba. Palin is a Bubba.
Ultimately, I think McCain needs someone more like Clinton than Palin in order to win this election. We'll see.
Boo hoo hoo, Kate!
Actually you got your Ivy Leauge degree back when those schools were discriminating against Jews or Asians.
Two groups, by the way, that somehow manage to get into the UCs your sorry-ass offspring can't. The Ivies too.
Your bigotry and sense of entitlement are pathetic, but I'll give you this: the bit about how it's all celebrities and poor children with hardship stories was endearing in its delusional stupidity.