Often when I ask people why they support Obama for president, they tell me that they want someone who is more intelligent than they are, and has a more informed world-view. I ask Ivy Leaguers how much more intelligent they believe politicians are than they, that those politicians could look at a set of information and make a better analysis or decision than if those same people I ask looked at the same information. I rarely get a thoughtful answer.
These same people who seek elite political leaders are critical of Sarah Palin. Some of them concede that Barack Obama has little experience to rely on, and they are more interested in what Palin’s VP selection says about McCain. There is, however, a lack of understanding of heartland conservatism and of the idea of self-government from the college educated and the DC/NY media and political circles.
That Republicans like Peggy Noonan and David Brooks have criticized Sarah Palin is disappointing, but not surprising. The elite media prefers one of their own, not an outsider like Palin who represents the self-government that our country was founded upon.
The big-tent Republicans were the same ones who didn’t understand Ronald Reagan. These elites are generally embarrassed by middle America and religious conservatives. Reagan was able to coalesce the social, economic, and national security conservatives in a way that few Republicans have.
John McCain is not Ronald Reagan, he is one of the big-tent conservatives who believe in appeasing centrist and independent voters. This is part of why McCain has had a nice relationship with the media prior to his Republican presidential nomination.
Sarah Palin is a conservative in every sense. She comes from a working family and has no fancy pedigree. She wasn’t a lawyer-turned-legislator who worked her way up through the ranks and softened her conservatism under the pressures of Washington and the media. She is outside the elite narrative of the DC/NY corridor. She is like most Americans, who do not live in metropolitan cities and proclaim themselves as intelligent and sophisticated because of their education or employment.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden are elites, no matter that they didn’t begin that way. Biden has made his career in Washington, where he has learned he can get away with complete dishonesty with the help of the media (remember the tally of errors from the VP debate?). Obama has learned quickly how to take advantage of the opportunities offered to those among the mostly left elite circles, including how to avoid telling us who he really is.
Obama and Biden are like all the other elites who think they know better than we do. Obama’s 2001 radio interview only confirms this, as he clearly laments the structure of this country as it is. Obama wants the government to control the country, because he believes that it is inherently bad, and therefore we cannot trust the people to make good decisions.
His comments in that interview display a recognition that the courts are not suited to institute the change he seeks; they suggest that he has sought power so that he could correct the country and the world as he sees fit, even if his changes do not align with the Constitution.
The contrast between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama highlights the basic choice in this election: empowering self-proclaimed elites or average individuals.
