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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: For Working Moms, 'Flawed' Palin Is the Perfect Choice (Stupid is as Stupid Does) For Working Moms, 'Flawed' Palin Is the Perfect Choice By Marc Fisher Thursday, September 11, 2008; Page B01 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. "She justifies what we do every day," said Beth Tweddle, who works in sales and carried a sign she drew herself, saying "We [heart] Pit Bull Palin." Tweddle was already a McCain supporter, she said, "but Sarah just energizes us and got us out here because she does what we do, she lives like we do." We don't live in an age of looking up to authority anymore. We don't cotton to the idea that there are people who are our betters. 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. Karla Rupp, a real estate agent, went to see Palin on behalf of her three children, especially the one who has multiple disabilities and is in a nursing home. Val Lewis couldn't stay away -- "that's how empowering it is to have Sarah up there. I have four children; she has five. And we get it done." 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. McCain knew it; he led the audience in a chant of "Sar-ah! Sar-ah!" Still, did 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? Just a couple of weeks ago, the Republicans wielded "celebrity" as an insult. No more. They have seen Barack Obama's electric effect on audiences, and they have trumped him, at least in a way. Obama may still draw larger crowds and inspire followers with a message of hope and change. But the governor of Alaska is winning people over with empathy, which the dictionary says means "understanding and entering into another's feelings," and with something even more direct: a sense that her experience is that of the average American family's. "She's just as flawed as we are," Tweddle said. "It's not the fact that she's a woman but the way she does it all. And let me tell you: There're more American parents with unwed pregnant teenaged children than American parents with Harvard grads. She's real." For hours, I walked through the crowd talking to people, mostly women. Again and again, I heard variations on this idea: "She's more like us than Obama, McCain or any of the others," as Rupp put it. "She knows what we go through." 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. FDR could speak to the pain Americans felt in the Depression, and no one especially cared that he had never personally felt such strain. Reagan could inspire Americans to believe that the nation had a higher purpose, and his celebrity and Hollywood roots only made him that much more admired. Palin is connecting because, like a reality TV show's most sympathetic contestant, she puts front and center the inexperience, imperfection and pain that most professional politicians work so hard to hide. McCain can't quite tell the story of the pain and sacrifice he experienced as a prisoner of war? No problem. Palin will express the emotions that he can't. That's what mothers do. "Being a mom is tough, and being a mom and working is really tough," said Carol Buro, who could spare only an hour before she had to pick up her daughter from kindergarten in Vienna. She went to the rally anyway, because she just had to see Palin. "I was going to vote for McCain, but I wasn't very excited. I felt he was a little too political -- saying things because that's what people want to hear. Now I'm just so proud of Sarah. You know, we've all been through a lot. And she's seen some tough times, and she's stood up for what she believes in." Most people I spoke to readily conceded that Palin lacks experience with or knowledge of many important national and foreign issues. But, as Allison McGarvey, a teacher who lives in Stafford County, said, Palin is "a courageous woman, and what she doesn't know, she can learn quickly. Let's face it, no president knows all the issues. Anyway, I don't see how a candidate can pick one stand and just stick to it. The world situation changes every day. It's their moral and ethical background that's important." 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. Like many at the rally, Victoria Robinson-Worst sees Palin's lack of experience as an asset. "I know people who have experience who are totally incompetent," said Robinson-Worst, who lives in Loudoun County, designs wedding flowers and raises two children. "And I know people who have no experience who step in and get it right. I mean, women can do amazing things." This is where culture wars, identity politics and self-suffocating academic theories of deconstructionism have led us: Authority is suspect. Experience is corrupting. Ignorance is strength? Next will be "war is peace." Or have we already heard that one? Join me at noon today for "Potomac Confidential" athttp://www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline.
Poster Comment: A) I do not support Obama. B) I wrote a thesis once for political science on the Bruce WIllis movie "Armageddon' where I noticed this trend where this notion of the everyman knowing more the experts rides in to save the day. The movie had NASA as a bunch of bumblers who turn for help to Texas oil drillers - blue collar and no collar types - who they send out into space to save the day. This is type of notion is fostered by political machines on both the left and right wing - but mostly the right wing these days. Since the political dialogue has been dumbed down for the lowest common denominator, that is why I imagine our politicians speak to us like we are third graders - calling those we fight wars against as the 'Bad Guys' and pushing absurd notions of reality and other such simplistic characterizations.
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#1. To: brukeman1 (#0)
This is where culture wars, identity politics and self-suffocating academic theories of deconstructionism have led us: Authority is suspect. Experience is corrupting. Ignorance is strength? Next will be "war is peace." Or have we already heard that one?
A lot of people voted for Clinton or Bush because they had "regular guy" kind of demeanor, even when they knew nothing about their views or disagreed with them. Unfortunately, people don't vote so much on issues as on personalities, and Palin seems to be somebody that a lot of people like and identify with. So being an ignoramus can actually be a big plus in politics! It's not just the soccer moms either. Pat Buchanan seems to have fallen for the Palin-Prop: buchanan.org/blog/2008/09...ne-of-them-and-one-of-us/ All it took was talk about mooseburgers to make a lot of people forget that when Palin does talk about policy, she sounds awfully like George W. Bush, and that she's the VP choice of a guy who surrounds himself with PNAC moles like Randy Scheuenemann.
#11. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#7)
(Edited)
Take a peek at who the "guy" has surrounded himself with as foreign policy advisors: thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/03/17/mccain-advisers/ Fall in, neocons ... forward march! Unbelievable. I'm starting to feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.
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