[Marxism] Nation report highlights liberal fear, weakness under Palin attack

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Sarah Palin Show
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/354172


posted by Bob Moser on 09/04/2008 @ 02:11am

As the much-anticipated debut of The Sarah Palin Show crept closer in the
Xcel Center last night, the overwhelmingly white and well-heeled Republicans
rose to their feet, cheering, to dance and sing along to the infectious
strains of Sly Stone's Everyday People--demonstrating not only a giddy lack
of self-awareness (or irony), but also showing that the folks in the hall
had gotten the alerts from GOP Message Central: Palin, the woman they'd come
tonight to celebrate and cheer, is above all else Everyday People. 

I'd been hearing it all week from the delegates. "She's relatable," a
Florida fellow said. "I think what Gov. Palin's able to offer is the
perspective of any everyday American," a Mississippi delegate told me.
"She's real--real people. Wow!" a Texas delegate chimed in. Her family
troubles, which have fueled a feeding frenzy among the dimwits who blog on
the Huffington Post, only testified all the more powerfully to her
everydayness. "If anything, it just kind of shows what a normal American she
is. Family crises and situations like this arise in families all across the
country, and I think she's doing the best with the situation. I think it
will make Gov. Palin all the more strong," said another Texan. 

You might not think that averageness would qualify a person for the
second-highest office in the land. But if you might not think that, you
haven't been paying attention to the way Republicans have won presidential
elections for the last forty years. Palin is the logical extension of the
cultural populism that has warped our politics--and for which the Democrats
have, as yet, found no good answer. 

The "one of us" quality--and her talent at projecting it--is clearly what
got Palin on the ticket (silly chatter about Hillary voters aside). With his
underrated grasp of the kind of substance-free emotional symbolism that wins
national elections, John McCain sniffed out in Palin a kind of Hollywood
fairy tale: homegirl from small town, reluctant beauty queen, plucky point
guard, deadly shot and mother of five, suddenly--magically--plucked from
obscurity and thrust into the national spotlight. 

Come to think of it, even Julia Roberts might have turned down this
half-baked script (though the chance to sport a beehive and have a movie
hubby as hunky as Todd would surely have been a temptation). But Palin--who
replied to her first shouted reporter's question about her readiness for the
job with a crisp, Alaskan "Sure, yup, yup"--showed no such scruples. She'd
made it refreshingly clear, early in the "vetting" process, that she had no
notion of what a vice president does--another big plus, no doubt, in
McCain's view. 

Because Palin is not on the ticket to do anything. She's on the ticket to be
something. It's all about firing up the non-ideological center--which can
only be done by drowning the economic sufferings of average Americans once
again under a wave of whitebred, flag-waving, faux populism. And it has
rarely been put across more effectively than she did Thursday night. 

This tough politician is hardly "just your average hockey mom who signed up
for the PTA," by a long stretch, but that doesn't make a damn bit of
difference in American politics. Palin is certainly an extremist--but she
doesn't come across like one, so the label is going to be tough to stick on
her. All that matters, in our twisted and media-soaked politics, is that you
play the part well. Palin's apparently got the knack. No matter how the plot
might strain credulity, the performance was Oscar-worthy. And the Democrats
have got themselves a whole new set of worries. 

When Palin cracked wise about Barack Obama or the media, she delivered the
lines like a snarky neighbor leaning over the fence, complaining about the
elitists--or the "good old boys"--to her next-door neighbor. Her dandiest
line of the night, equally well delivered, was directed at Obama's stupid
comment about the bitterness of struggling Americans: "We tend to prefer a
candidate," she said, "who doesn't talk about us one way in Scranton and
another way in San Francisco." This, more than anything, made me cringe.
However much I admire Obama, it carried the ring of home truth--delivered by
someone who can make such lines hit home. 

It's all pure-T bullshit, of course: another "everyday" politician who's
going to put the screws to every working person in America if she gets the
chance. But so was Nixon's populism, and Reagan's, and Bush's. Americans
fully expect bullshit from their politicians. It only matters that it's the
right kind. And Sarah Palin, as we learned last night, is frighteningly full
of it. 



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