"A politician's words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience" - George Will
George Will offered those words long before he, or anyone else outside Wasilla, had ever heard of Gov. Sarah Palin. Or Wasilla. But as the 2008 presidential election comes to a head, they're words worth remembering.
At first, the choice of Sarah Palin as Sen. John McCain's running mate was simply appalling. Here was a woman who, whatever her populist pedigree, was being nominated for an office whose only job requirement was that she have the experience necessary to step into the presidency at a moment's notice. It would be hard to find a major party nominee in all of American history less qualified on those grounds than Palin.
Then, as Palin was carefully sheltered from the media and gave one after another stupifyingly incoherent interview to the McCain team's handpicked interviewers, her selection moved beyond appalling to simple farce.
But now, Palin's run for high office has moved beyond being either appalling for her inexperience or farcical for her incoherence. Palin and McCain have chosen to double down on the "appalling," not for what Palin is saying or doing, but for what the response to it says about much of her audience - and what it says about both McCain and Palin that they are intentionally exploiting the phenomenon.
Where to start?
How about with the sad truth that Palin's lack of experience is, in some quarters, an integral part of her appeal. In Bush, we've suffered the results of anti-intellectualism. But Palin's selection took it one step further: from an affirmative action (for the rich) Harvard MBA to a "hockey mom" who went to five colleges in six years; from a largely ignorant and incurious man who learned to recite his lines well on the national stage to a largely ignorant and incurious woman who won't even try to answer the question now if it stumps her. And it usually does.
And that, remarkably, is endearing Palin to a segment of our society who identifies with her, as in, "heck, if she can be president, I could be president!" It's Mrs. Palin Goes to Washington, only without any of Jimmy Stewart's endearing qualities. But it's the perfect myth for folks who think that any fool could do a better job of running the world than Those Damn Politicians. All it takes is some good old-fashioned common sense. And small town values.
And -let's spell it out here - what Palin means by that last phrase is "small town, white values." Palin's attacks on Barack Obama, and in particular her coded racial references ("Who Is Barack Obama" answer: "Not One Of Us"; "Palling Around With Terrorists" implication "Since all Muslims are Terrorists, He's One of Them") have opened up a remarkably ugly seam in American politics and culture.
The predictably bigoted ugliness and hatred this has spawned among some of Palin's (McCain's) audiences got so bad that late last week, McCain actually had to call to task several of his more hysterical questioners in a Town Hall meeting. But this is no credit to McCain: he started this fire, and therefore deserves no plaudits for showing up later at the scene of the conflagration with a half-full bucket of water.
Any student of recent American history - much of which McCain himself lived through - would know well that this strain of anti-intellectual hatred of an "other" is not a sentiment to be toyed with for electoral gain.
Over the years a lot of people lost their lives as a result of it. It's truly alarming that McCain was willing to not only make an anti-intellectual pick like Palin, but then use her to whip up such sentiments as a way to try to get himself elected. It says this is a man who thinks his electoral base is ignorant and bigoted, and is hoping to exploit that. It also says that this is a man who'd do anything to achieve power.
Fortunately, it isn't working. But it's working well enough with too many Americans, and the risk is that they'll take the lessons of McCain and Palin and apply them in their own communities, well after Nov. 4.
That's one danger. The other is that, even if she loses in November, this campaign has made a trailer trash star of Sarah Palin. The next four years are likely to be worrisome, scary times. And come 2012, she, or someone very much like her, will be back.
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