It seems to me that this election has become less about Barack Obama vs. John McCain than Barack Obama vs. Sarah Palin.
Our good friend — and occasional contributor — Mr Grey Ghost referenced an article in The New York Post by Ralph Peters, in which Mr Peters claimed that the things our friends on the left fear most about Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) is that she not only says she is a Christian, but she actually seems to be a Christian:
- Nothing in recent memory has driven home the divide between our self-appointed aristocracy and “commoners” as sharply as the intelligentsia’s rush to mock Gov. Sarah Palin’s religious faith.
While the attacks and insults are backfiring on the mortified elites, the double standard applied to “Sarah America” is a disgrace that can’t be excused as “just politics.”
Certainly, much of the left-wing fury over Palin stems from the Democratic Party’s assumption that it “owned” the exclusive right to nominate women to the executive branch (despite the crushing of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy). How dare the Republicans advance a woman? How dare they change this year’s election script?
But the root of the left’s dread of this happily married mother of five seems to be that she actually believes in God: How could anyone be that stupid?
Such a woman wouldn’t fit in Washington (nor would a man of equal faith). In the DC area (where I live), plenty of government-affiliated men and women regularly attend a church or synagogue. But their appearances are perfunctory and well-mannered. Passionate faith is regarded as an embarrassment.
Belief in God is just so uncool!
Mr Ghost had his own commentary, which is worth a read, but one part he omitted was Mr Peters’ concluding paragraph:
- In recent years, a succession of pundits has compared our country to ancient Rome. Most of the assertions are silly. But our governing elite certainly shares the Roman patricians’ disdain for the faith of the common citizen.
Mr Peters failed to mention that the Romans had a policy of deifying their emperors; the emperor was a god on earth. What better description would there be for the fans of the Obamessiah? 
But, there’s more to it than Mr Peters noted. He addressed the disdain that some of our friends on the left have for people who actually believe in the faith they profess. (They don’t have any problems with people like Senator John Kerry, a professed Catholic, because they knew that he wasn’t serious about being Catholic; Catholics knew it, of course, to the extent that they gave a majority of their votes to George Bush, a Methodist.)
In a way, it’s less religious than it is cultural. Our friends on the left like candidates with a cultural link to east coast liberalism, the kind of thing that led Senator Kerry, during his 2004 presidential campaign, to order Swiss cheese on a cheesesteak he got in Philadelphia. Mr Kerry was trying to be just another one of the “common people,” and never knew that you just don’t get Swiss on a Philly cheesesteak. That seems like a little thing, but it said a lot about the candidate: he was not one of the common people, but part of the wealthy liberal establishment, the latte-drinking sophisticates that our friends on the left either are or really, really want to be.
Senator Barack Obama doesn’t challenge their cultural conceptions, Senator Joe Biden doesn’t challenge their cultural perceptions, and even Senator John McCain doesn’t challenge them: they are all part of the Washington cultural climate.
Not Governor Palin! She’s so far into “flyover country” that it’s a part over which most people have never flown! She hunts, she fishes, she has worked with her hands, and she has been part of the working class in a way that the working class actually understand. To our friends on the left, who seem, despite their championship of the labor movement, to look down their noses at people who actually get their hands dirty to earn a living, Mrs Palin is far too close to the people, is actually one of the people who are unafraid to get their hands dirty.
Maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems to me that this election has become less about Barack Obama vs. John McCain than Barack Obama vs. Sarah Palin.
Nancy:
You can tell they are scared to death of Sarah, especially the media. Did you see the Gibson Interview? You know whats really appalling about that hatchet job of an interview? What they left out, over at my site insights.com, we have the full transcript as well as a review of how she did. I couldn’t believe the stuff they edited out of the interview.
13 September 2008, 11:20 amDana Pico:
Nancy: I visited your fine site, but your settings do not allow comments by people who don’t have blogger.com or Open ID accounts.
13 September 2008, 12:13 pmJeff:
One wonders what D.C. area Mr. Peters lives in. In the D.C. area I grew up in, I was friends with devout Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Muslims…
To our friends on the left, who seem, despite their championship of the labor movement, to look down their noses at people who actually get their hands dirty to earn a living, Mrs Palin is far too close to the people, is actually one of the people who are unafraid to get their hands dirty.
I’m pretty darn liberal (though I don’t drink lattes… ick), and I don’t look down upon those who do manual labor for a living. Nor do most of my liberal friends. Why is it then, Dana, that so many of those who get their hands dirty for a living seem to look down on those of us who enjoy weird foreign foods, drive hybrid cars, and make a living at a computer terminal? For example, by calling us “afraid” of manual labor?
13 September 2008, 11:40 pm