Eight working mothers from the Virginia Run development in Centreville went together to the Palin-McCain rally yesterday because Sarah Palin is "just like us." This is something new. Nobody ever accused Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan of being just like us.
Perhaps it's because they weren't snobs disdainful of the little people clinging to their Bibles and guns.
In this time of "American Idol," bedroom bloggers and the belief that experience, knowledge and education don't necessarily mean a whole lot, Palin is a symbol, a statement that anyone can make it if he or she really tries.
Isn’t that the American dream?
The crowd, which I counted at 8,000 but which police estimated at 23,000, gathered at Van Dyck Park in Fairfax City represented votes for John McCain but passion for Palin... [D]id the man who might be the next president know that hundreds would start streaming out of the park as soon as Palin finished speaking, leaving a noticeably sparser audience to hear from the top of the ticket?
Heh. Thanks, Marc, for reminding of us of the “The One.”
Think of whomever you consider the greatest presidents, and odds are, they were about as far as you can get from being like the rest of us. They tend to have come from wealth, power, fame, the pinnacle of our education system or all of the above.
Abraham Lincoln. Harry Truman. Lyndon Johnson.
In this hyperdemocratized society, the national conviction that anyone can succeed is morphing into a belief that experience and knowledge may almost be disqualifying credentials.
No, Marc. What is happening is that the nation has finally come to recognize that the elite – “those from wealth, power, fame, the pinnacle of our education system” - don’t have a lock on intelligence, courage, conviction, common sense, knowledge, or experience, for that matter.
Reader Rebecca F. Benner swallows the average meme whole. Lauding Fisher in the (9/13) Letters section she writes: “It astounds me that [just like me] is one of the qualities that most people desire most. After all, we do not want our doctors, lawyers, airline pilots or electricians to be just like us.” and “I want a president who is smarter, better educated, more even-tempered and far wiser than I am.”
Rebecca, there are differences between being trained, being smart, and being wise.
[UPDATE 9/13] Power Line links to a post by Steven F. Hayward:
Give 'em Hell, Sarah
Like Truman, a natural-born executive
Lurking just below the surface of the second-guessing about Sarah Palin's fitness to be president is the serious question of whether we still believe in the American people's capacity for self-government, what we mean when we affirm that all American citizens are equal, and whether we tacitly believe there are distinct classes of citizens and that American government at the highest levels is an elite occupation.
Exactly right.
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