Small Towns and Big Time Politics

When you grow up in a small or mid-sized town, over time you come to realize that people from bigger towns, in general, have a condescending attitude about how and where you grew up. I think it starts to really dawn on you in junior high and high school as you begin interact with kids from bigger cities, and college certainly reinforces this feeling.

You couldn't possibly be up on the latest cool trends, be as sophisticated, be as savvy, etc., as they are because you grew up out in the sticks.

People who live in these areas are not, however, fools. They think that the people who think this way - the city boys - lack even the basics of common sense, and certainly aren't as rugged and tough as the country boys. They'd be lost outside the city. And they don't think these people have anything to brag about in their own lives, not in a relative sense. They have their share of kids out of wedlock, divorces, drug use, whatever. They have absolutely no reason to feel superior to the rest of America, but yet they do. Or that's how it feels anyway.

This is the feeling Sarah Palin wants to tap into. I haven't seen the speech as I write this, but I'm guessing it will appeal to this emotion. That's what the elitism charge is all about, to remind people in these areas that these people think they are better than they are, they look down upon their way of life. (same with the appeal to the devout church-going constituency, I think it's the lack of respect they feel for their beliefs that is being exploited by the Right's framing of the issues).

So Democrats have to be very careful not to stoke this emotion as they try and dissuade people from voting the McCain-Palin ticket (assuming it comes to be, which I assume it will). Any hint of condescension for this way of life and the traditions that come along with it will be tapped into and mined to the Republicans advantage.

Kids out of wedlock, divorce, crazy family members, affairs, that's part of life, and trying to exploit any of that is a mistake. Making a big deal about being from a small town and using that to argue about credentials won't work. If you grew up outside of a major city, you're used to being thought of in that way, and they resent it. The target audience for the Palin selection doesn't think politicians, academics, elites, etc. have any common sense about the world. You hear that over and over, the "anyone with common sense would know" type argument. They want no part of cities and the values they perceive to exist there, that way of life is very alien to them (what's a community organizer?) They think their way of life is just fine, truth be told better even, the values, the quality of life, all of it, and any suggestion to the contrary will be met with resistance.

I fear that people crafting responses to the Palin selection do not understand this emotion, the lack of respect that people in these areas feel for their lifestyle, their intelligence, their way of life, etc. Attempts to bring down Palin that stoke these emotions will actually bring great sympathy.

Here's another way of expressing what I'm trying to say.

Learning how to dress a deer in the field is something that happens on a hunting trip with your father, grandfather, uncle, maybe a few of their friends. It's a family time, a time to bond as "men", and it's a tradition that has passed from father to son for as long as you can remember (my mom's family helped to settle the area of California where I grew up). It's partly men drinking and telling stories around the fire, partly the serious business of hunting (where alcohol is strictly forbidden). But most importantly it's a family tradition, something that passes from father to son. You bring deer jerky to school to share with your friends as a symbol that you bagged a deer, that kind of thing. It's embedded in the culture.

When we make fun of knowing how to field-dress a moose, we are also making fun of the family traditions behind it, and we send the wrong message to this constituency. Sarah Palin will appeal to this group, as well as to all the women who had to stay home while their brothers got to go with dad on these trips. She opens doors for their hopes too.

All I'm saying is that as we frame the response to her, we should do our best to understand the nature of the appeal she is making so as to avoid strategies that may backfire. The group they are appealing to doesn't want Washington's money, though that never hurts, they want respect. I think it's that simple, and responses that don't give this constituency the respect they believe they are due will likely be counterproductive.

I haven't spent much time in really big cities, three and a half yeas in San Diego pretty much does it (and that was two different times that were years apart), and I'm a long way from living in a really small town like where I grew up. I live in a somewhat larger area now, around 200,000 total I think, maybe a bit less, but I've noticed that once you get outside of the University area and connect with the people who were born and raised here, the values aren't much different from the small-town values I grew up around, the cultural distance is much closer than it is to, say, Portland or Seattle. I think there is a fairly large constituency here, large enough to pay attention to - it's not just a bunch of small town folk whose collective numbers are of little relevance to the outcome of the election - and paying more attention to, and showing more respect for, the cultural values and traditions this group holds could make a big difference.

But I'm biased, and you can take or leave what I have to say. San Diego was great, I learned to surf when I was there a few years ago and that was really cool, but a life of crowded freeways never quite felt like home.

Comments

[John V]

Bingo. Well said. As someone who was born in a big city, grew up in a small town with immigrant parents and lived and studied abroad in 3 different countries in big cities, I find big city condescension to be utterly laughable, empty and the supreme height of ironic ignorance.

As Palin spoke (I did watch the speech), the thoughts you wrote were going through my mind. It actually started with Rudy when he chided Obama and the Left for sneering on Palin "small town experience". Rudy gestured and spoke in a foppish way and said:

"They don't think it's COSMOPOLITAN enough."

The crowd roared. And yes, many of them come from big cities.

But Palin alos struck a cord with potential voters by attacking special interests and citing oil lobbies in particular for not liking reform and wanting to leave things the way they are.

I may not be voting McCain/Palin but I have to say that it was a very effective speech. I can tell she had a lot of unsuspecting onlookers eating out of her hand.

So yes. Beware of being that snobby, shallow elitist that many people love to hate. Palin really hot that theme.

[Gene O'Grady]

Sorry, but Sarah Palin strikes me as more meth lab than Dorcas Smucker.

The reason I've admired women from Idaho homeschooling their "country children," big LDS families, and extremely guys passing on hunting traditions to their kids is that they typically are also passing on manners, restraint, modesty, quiet skills, none of which I see in the loud mouthed, self- indulgent Palins. The people I mentioned above (all real, and from my own experience) would rather die than go on the Internet as "fucking rednecks."

[George R]

The poor dears need respect. But they sneer at us cosmopolitan folks as somehow fake, or not authentic. They are convinced that killing an animal with high powered weapons (invented, designed, and manufactured by big city folks) is somehow as authentic as our ancestors who used primitive weapons. They would wound an animal then track it until exhaustion. Civilization began with cities. Doctors are trained in cities. All the paraphanelia used by small town folks were provided by city folks. Small town folks cheat on their spouses and taxes as much as anyone else. All this talk about values is a crock. Respect cuts both ways.

Just how long does it take to learn to dress a deer anyway.

GR

[Jenn]

I certainly cannot argue against what you have written, but, as a loyal-big-city-only-like-fake-nature-dweller, I feel compelled to speak up against the over-representation of rural America. A voter in Kansas has something like 33x more representation in Congress than NYC. Protesting this inequality in our democracy is akin to screaming at the sky for raining out the parade, but I'm just tired of being judged as outside of what is "ordinary" America. With the rate of urbanization, "ordinary" is the urban America.

[Captain Quirk]

Hey, Watch it. I live in San Diego (Del Mar).

Kind of big in the britches, aren't you, looking down on us San Diegans like that.

Damn country folk. Always putting on airs against us city people.

Ain't right. Just ain't right.

[Mark Thoma]

I lived in Pacific Beach in the mid-1980s, Leucadia last time (it was around seven years ago, I visited and taught at UCSD both times). I liked Leucadia a lot more, except for the train that went by every 20 minutes or whatever it was.

[donna]

I could care less where she's from, but she left her little town $20 million in debt.

That's what matters.

[Captain Quirk]

"I lived in Pacific Beach in the mid-1980s,"

Mz and I lived in Pacific Beach (Olney and Garnet) from 1983 through around 1987. We probably passed each other. Pacific Beach was much less crowded even then than it is now--impossibly crowded.

Got my Masters in Applied Physics/Engineering at UCSD in 1989. Probably passed each other there as well.

Wife and I considered moving to Leucadia once. Watched the train go by the apartment building we considered and thought--nah. Ended up in University City/La Jolla for a while.

Small world.

[howard]

thank you, donna.

look, insofar as the gop tries to turn this nomination into a return to the culture wars, they're experts at it and it doesn't really matter what dems or the obama campaign in particular have to say.

but insofar as we are trying to deal with reality here (admttedly, that's not so far in a presidential race), the issue is that being mayor of a small town has NOTHING to do with being president of the united states.

[green apron monkey]

Well said, well said.

[Mark P]

You ought to try growing up in a small Southern town. Take everything you just said (which was spot on) and add to it the assumption of immorality.

I've long felt that the problems that Northern Democratic presidential candidates face has less to do with racism and more to do with a response to years of condescension and being demonized. A surprising number of Southerners are open to progressive ideas if those voters are treated with respect. I'm sad to say that few leaders in the Democratic Party get that but I think Obama does and I think he'll be more competitive than people expect in the South as a result. Yes, I know the primaries seemed to contradict some of this but you have to remember that he was running against a Clinton and the Clintons have a unique and well-deserved bond with poor rural Southerners.

If the Democrats handle this right the bubba vote might be in play.

[Lee A. Arnold]

Really an engaging delivery.

Who is looking down on Palin for being small-town? Is it the TV talking heads? I have to ask because I never ever watch them. The other candidates were originally all small-town too, I think.

And I'm very happy to know anyone who can dress a moose, because I like anybody who knows how to do anything cool. To me the whole world is gravy like that.

She's a very engaging speaker, but I'm not sure the speech hit the real objective, although it will hold the fundamentalist wing of the Republican Party together.

The Republican objective must be to provide reasons so you can overlook her lack of national security credentials. Because at this moment of history, it would be a real mistake to put a neophyte a heartbeat away from the presidency. So far, we're receiving misdirection, and redefinition of phrases like "executive experience."

The speech hit the following rhetorical topics:

1) McCain as a war hero with guts, determination, prison camp. sacrifice, long service, etc.

2) Family and small town life.

3) Going to Washington D.C. as a reformer. (Your less-than-humble reporter guessed this one here, a few days ago. They need to drive a wedge between their ticket and Bush -- notice, there was no mention of the President.)

4) Issues where her gubernatorial experience gives her some thoughts for the coming debate: taxes, oil drilling.

5) Obama is inexperienced, and has incorrect positions (and they continue to really misrepresent some of them, which is dangerous.)

The Republicans must do the #3 "reform Washington" thing, to distance themselves from Bush, but I'm not sure it works against the image of the Democratic ticket. Further, the Dems can point out that this is what they're doing, and hang Bush back around their necks.

And I'm not sure the misdirection works on the big question of her readiness on national security and foreign policy. We are in a very serious crisis. There's still two months for the voters to think about the importance of it.

[Cyrille]

You're in a very serious crisis, indeed. An economic one.

National security crisis you mean? Not in the least. It's time such rethoric is abandoned. Bush and Cheney might CREATE a crisis with Russia, there are way too many firearms going around, but national security is just fine right now.

[Icarus]

Off topic, but related...

I've been watching the Republican National Convention this past night, and I'm alarmed.

They really looked like Nazis. It was shocking. Guiliani, Palin, whomever...they're speaking in propogandistic simpliciites and half truths, catering to a shallow nationalism which is despicable. The audience is evil-white, and there's a religious overtone which smacks of further evil.

This is just sick.

The Republican party simply looks like Nazis.

[rufus]

I could not agree more with your assessment Mark. Considering the make-up of the respective parties' tickets it would seem any attack based on cultural differences is doomed for failure. While to some degree it is exciting that one of two 232 year old barriers will be broken at the end of this campaign, I was initially uneasy with the forceful nature of the speech prepared for Palin. She carried the attack banner well. A bit too well at times as this part of the oratory was down right scary:

"Victory in Iraq is finally in sight; he wants to forfeit," she said of Obama. "Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America; he's worried that someone won't read them their rights."

She quite capably delivered the republican message that they are the experts when it comes to making war. I think this was a great moment for Palin as the republican VP nominee, but is it the high point. I think unscripted debates and off the cuff campaigning will be most telling regarding her competency. I submit this example of Palin, when having to work in an improvisational arena:

http://www.charlierose.com/guests/sarah-palin

Sharing the small spotlight with Janet Napolitano, her deficiencies appear glaring. No doubt she is undergoing round the clock coaching to improve her improvisational skills, with specific messages and talking points to steer all discussions towards.

[reason]

To put this in perspective, I'm an Australian and something like 90% of Australians live in Big Cities. I live in Europe now, and although a larger proportion of the population is officially "rural", most of them actually live in the commuter belt of larger cities. Maybe that explains why America seems so wierd to the rest of the West. The idea that a significant part of the population has a big chip on their shoulder about a lack of respect from Urbanised co-citizens just seems strange.

[Captain Quirk]

Agree with Icarus. GOP does look a lot like Nazis.

[reason]

To clarify this a bit, in Australia in my experience the boundary between city and country (what there is of it) is much more pervious than it seems to be in America. Typically many of the sons and daughters of country folks move to the city, and so go the other way (for work - especially teachers) or as a life style choice (hobby farmers). So this sense of being different and imcomprehensible cultures doesn't exist. There may be some ribbing, but nobody takes it seriously.

[reason]

... and some go the other way ...

[hari]

Mark - After dressing the ducks...now deer...and moose. Fine.

I can only sympathize with you - given my own plantation farm background and lots of animals to play with.

What's missing here is the way the Maverick challenged the RNC - by selecting a neopythe for VP. RNC didn't accept his personal friend Liberman because of his position on abortion and whatnot. So, without adieu, he checkmated them with Palin! Let the flakes fly...who cares!

A *Super Power* is capable of selecting a better candidate a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, I'd argue.

If the US conservatives are cooking up a *new facist* state, one doesn't know yet...but listening to her well polished coded/scripted speech one wonders what follows next....?

[odograph]

No doubt they can play "country insecurity" especially when it is bound to a Creationist worldview. Kevin Philips again.

Obama made a mis-step on "God and guns" but as cit, centrist, Republican, who does believe in evolution ... I sometimes wonder what those country folk are thinking, and where they want to take us.

I swear, it sounded like Romney was giving them a zinger when he said:

"And we will never allow America to retreat in the face of evil extremism!

Just like you,

Just like you,

Just like you, there has never been a day when I was not proud to be an American. We inherited the greatest nation in the history of the earth."

(I had to add the extra "Just like you(s)" that were there in the speech as given and not in the published text. The pause after the first "Just like you" hung ... a little too long.

text

[odograph]

"a city" got clipped to "cit" above.

But really, us city folk, believing in global warming and evolution and that a financial plan needs to be more complicated than "cut taxes" ... crazy.

[odograph]

"Victory in Iraq is finally in sight; he wants to forfeit,"

I hope someone presses McCain to define "victory" and contrasts it to the lofty pre-invasion goals.

We are in a national process of "declare victory and go home." The only difference in the two parties is a subtle one ... how they declare their non-victories as victories.

As far as I'm concerned the McCain/Palin group just wants to pretend a little harder, and convince themselves that something we would have considered abject failure in 2002 is in fact victory now.

[reason]

odograph...
you label yourself as a Republican - how interesting. I would never have guessed. We tend mostly to agree and although I am not American (and so don't wear an American label) I could never imagine myself tarring myself with that brush. You seem to be mostly concerned with environmental issues - hardly stardard GOP issues.

[odograph]

I'm too conservative to change ;-)

My dad went through a similar cycle. He registered as a Democrat in the 40s, drifted away from the party and voted Republican for 20-30 years, and drifted back to liberalism in his later years.

My PoliticalCompass.org score puts me at centrist-libertarian, maybe unusual for a modern Republican.

[bakho]

I think this comes from the media more than from the Obama campaign. The media sneer at anyone who is not in the club. Ideally, we have politicians that understand both the problems of urban and rural America and everything in between. Cities are more complex and more interdependent on government services than are rural areas. I have nothing against rural candidates that bother to get experience in how to deal with urban problems.

[bakho]

In an election that is all about the stupid economy. Palin delivered nothing on jobs jobs jobs. If McCain (whose strong suit is not economics) floats weak pablum about the same old tax cuts for the wealthy, it will position the GOP as even more out of touch on the economy.

[ken melvin]

Loved her, and the rethugs, appeal to the working class, 'they that grow our food and fight our wars'.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Check Krugman's blog.

He used a post about his ailing mother to brag up New Jersey as diverse and tolerant while emphasizing the center of the country is not diverse and not tolerant.

Like Princeton is the real world, ya know.

Moose is good, but elk is better.

[kharris]

George R has nailed it. This is, once again, the politics of division. Palin (and her new-found party) want that "us against them" notion in the air. They are calling the kettle black. I would say, though, in response to Mark's notion that this is about a urban-rural split, that it is more extensive than that. I cannot speak for every vile, elitist big city, but in Indianapolis, Boston, DC and NYC, there are plenty of people angry at the smarty-pants PhDs, plenty of people who spout notions straight from Hannity and Limbaugh, who feel that their interests are the essence of what is good, and that anybody who has contrary interests are grasping, lazy and immoral. Not every narrow mind is in the GOP, of course, but the GOP has a special talent for inflaming them. The anti-"elitist" ploy works plenty well in every city I've ever lived in.

[A Voter]

Say what you will about the crazy conservatives, the choice of Palin has shown McCain and company to be top-notch political strategists. McCain has taken what was clearly a losing hand and put himself in the best possible position for the final run to November. In doing so, he’s shown himself to be a bold and gutsy campaigner with a never-say-quit attitude.

Palin’s speech last night put everyone on notice that this campaign will not be fought over real issues. The cultural wars are back on. Mark is right, McCain is driving a wedge between city vs. rural and coastal elite vs. heartland. Time will tell how effective this strategy will be.

I didn’t think McCain had it in him, but he’s put his campaign in a position to win in November in spite of the fact that two months ago he looked as if he didn’t have a chance. It’s an impressive feat against an opponent with Obama’s natural strengths, and it says volumes about where America is politically and culturally.

Obama/Biden better sharpen their swords. McCain/Palin have come out swinging.

[reason]

Rusty
I don't (and didn't) read Krugman the way you do. I'll quote the relevant passage:
One thing, though: several commenters said, more or less, that’s the way it is in central New Jersey, but out in small-town America there’s a lot less diversity and tolerance.
No doubt there’s some truth to that — but please, can we get over the idea that small towns in the heartland are the “real America”? A long time ago I complained when Bush said he went to Crawford to be with “real Americans”: I asked, “And what are those of us who live in New Jersey — chopped liver?”
Today’s America is an overwhelmingly urban/suburban nation, in which a majority of the population lives in metropolitan areas with more than a million people. It’s ethnically and culturally diverse. Mercer County — which is a lot more than Princeton, which I admit is a bit unreal — IS what America looks like today. And a fine nation it is.

The nearest he gets to saying what you are saying is "some truth to that". Not really controversial, I wouldn't think. I think you are pretty thin skinned on this issue.

[robertdfeinman]

OK, a few facts and a conjecture:

80% of the population is now "urban". Here's the census data:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.htm

Within that broad category there is hidden a large fraction which is actually suburban (about 25% of the group).

As has been pointed out, rural areas get disproportionate representation in congress. 18% of the population controls 50% of the seats in the senate.

So rural (or agricultural) interests get a lot of gravy in congress, but because of the electoral college they have much less power over presidential elections. The media likes to show a map of the states indicating red vs blue, but this distorts the electoral effect. No matter how competitive Colorado may be it will never affect the election as much as NY, regardless of how big it looks on the map.

Here's a typical map:

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7923

By any rational projection the election won't be close, no matter how much the press wants to tout the horse race aspect to keep its audience.

Now the conjecture:
Rural areas used to be culturally isolated. This first started to come to an end with the spread of radio, but it was TV that made cultural icons universal. What was lacking was any way to interact, so rural people had only each other to talk to.

The internet, mobile media, Ipods, Youtube and the rest of interactive media have changed the landscape. A rural person not only can be immersed in the same cultural milieu as urbanites, but can contribute to it as well. To rephrase the old saw: "on the internet nobody knows you are from Wasilla".

I think a lot of the "red neck" behavior is a deliberate attempt to maintain some cultural distinction, just like the Irish in NYC with St. Patrick's day and their Irish bars.

What still may be different is the constraints on career in rural areas. "I'm going to LA to make it in show business" is still a common thread. In fact many rural communities complain about the constant brain drain as the most ambitious leave for the big city.

Perhaps rural America will start to look like rural Japan, only the old remaining.

[Jrossi]

GR, How to dress a deer (I assume a moose is similar): see one, do one, teach one.

[swells]

C'mon, there may be some relevance to the respect issue. Anyone who waxes carnivorous who doesn't know how to dress out a pig or cow or moose SHOULD respect those who do as befits the value of a division of labor. But, living in the rural south that is not the basis for my disrespect of many of neighbors.

My disrespect stems from their idiocy in believing things that are obviously stupid whether one lives in the country or the city. Like believing that race is a reliable indicator of anything other than how your body synthesizes vitamin D, or that creationism is a tenable theory. Evolution may be just a theory but creationism isn't even a theory and that is a fact that does not depend upon where someone lives (and isn't all real knowledge theory if one takes Hume's critique of induction to heart?).

There are many fine and decent people who live in rural areas. And there is no shortage of rednecks who live in the north or in cities. But, one should not respect anyone for being stupid and, as the saying goes, stupid is as stupid does.

[hari]

Swell - That was *hell marie* or what?

This thread seems somewhat dysfunctional to me from a distance - dealing with Nov 4 election.

[Barkley Rosser]

It is not rural-urban, it is everybody against the "eastern elites" from NYC and Washington. The speech was very well written, if containing quite some outright lies, and also, as I forecast, very well delivered. Palin may well be hard to offset and may be capable of those witty, killer Reaganisms: "pit bull with lipstick" indeed (that one reportedly being the only ad libbed line in the speech, but it brought down the frenzied house).

[swells]

hari, sorry didn't get the drift of your question. My point is that Palin is stupid and the criticism of her needs to target that stupidity. She's believes in creationism and wants it taught in schools. She tried to censor library content and then tried to fire the librarian who resisted her efforts.

What we have here is an American Mullah in the making. She's a religious extremist and she should have to pay a price for the idiocy of her beliefs.

Yes, there are a lot of stupid people in America and they do get exercised when their stupidity isn't celebrated as some common sense form of wisdom. They may elect her. But sensible people need to call her on the stupidity and if that stupidity then triumphs, well, a winning percentage ofthe populace will get it's just deserts for aiding and abetting idiocy and the rest of us will once again be weighed down by the drivel that passes for thought in the minds of too many of our fellows.

She may have just energized more bases than McCain really would have preferred. There's lies, damned lies and statistics and then there's the whole realm of republican lies and they need to be called on them.

[ken melvin]

The speech was written back when the rethugs were saying, 'don't throw me in that briar patch.'

[Lee A. Arnold]

"National security crisis you mean? Not in the least."

That's a long argument and depends on how "crisis" is defined temporally, so I will just point out that many or most people (voters) would disagree -- looking at 9/11, Afghanistan, Pakistan, what happens next in Iraq, etc. The foreign policy community, Democratic and Republican, thinks the Bush Administration made quite a botch of things and there's a lot to do.

They know the real national security ticket is Obama/Biden.

In politics, it is the Republicans who emphasize security most, and so they should be FORCED to follow their own logic in regard to Palin's readiness.

The Democrats of course have to deal with their pacifist wing, which apparently believes that 9/11 was entirely blowback from previous U.S. policy, and so that if we just leave people alone they will stop killing. Unfortunately even if the first clause were entirely true (it's not,) the second clause doesn't necessarily follow.

And there is a larger number of people who seem to think that Homeland Security can prevent another attack on the U.S. -- Because the people who had the brains to cook-up the last attack couldn't possibly outwit us, when we are on our guard! Right!

On the other hand many people (and many of the same people) complain that Homeland Security, working properly, is going to lead to a police state. I think this too is correct.

The economic crisis is soluble, in some ways it solves itself, and it is not about killing. The national security crisis is profound.

[Barkley Rosser]

Regarding the flimsiness of the rural-urban split, supposedly 80-20 urban to rural in the US, it is worth realizing that probably Sarah Palin is technically "urban" from the standpoint of the US Census. From what I gather, Wasilla is "a couple of strip malls up the valley from Anchorage with a municipal boundary around them." This means it is a distant suburb of Alaska's largest city, Anchorage, almost certainly an officially "urban" area. Those tend to be defined by county boundaries, so if Wasilla is in the same county as Anchorage, and counties in AK tend to be very large, she is probably living in an officially urban area, despite all the moose-dressing and snowmobiling and ice hockey and so forth.

BTW, the largest county in the US outside of Alaska is also officially urban, San Bernadino in CA. Now, there is a pretty urbanized zone in its southwest corner around the city of San Bernadino, "Inland Empire," and all that. But the county extends to the NV and AZ boundaries and includes most of the Mojave Desert and Death Valley. So, somebody living in a shack in the middle of the Mojave Desert with nobody else even visible is officially "urban" in the eyes of the US Census (not to pick on them particularly, but just to warn people about the meaning of some of this data).

[Bruce Wilder]

My take on Sarah Palin is that she's a Type: a suburban sociopath, righteously authoritarian in her obliviousness to consequences.

Small, rural communities do have their own mentalities, for lack of a better word. I grew up in a community of 4000, the county seat of a county with more cows than people. But, Wasilla is a suburb of Anchorage, and it is the suburban mentality that dominates her thinking, and the "thinking" of the Republican Party.

The basic mentality of the Republican suburb is to create a bubble world, detached and separated and safe from the all the complications of the larger world: a simple, safe, pure place, which one can imagine (falsely) is independent and self-sustaining. "Crime" and cosmopolitan elites are "out there", part of the threatening world where all the "badness" is consigned. It is a world in which the essential interdependence of everyone and the consequences of choice can be ignored or distorted.

Sarah Palin may well become President and pretty much destroy the country, but none of it would be her fault -- just more challenges gifted from God.

[Alex Tolley]

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/3671/the-reform-candidate

Dear friends,

So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the
last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .

Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in
common: their gender and their good looks. :)

You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts
with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on
any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .

Thanks,
Anne

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992.
Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a
first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her
father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a
first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more
City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the
residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular
girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and
won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because
she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She
kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents
for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby.
There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out
there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a
champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly
sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his
work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or
so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their
major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything
like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000
(at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about
670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running
this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been
pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had
gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had
given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6
years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over
33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the
City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation
(1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a
regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she
promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they
benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration
weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed
money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it
with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage
the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said
she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a
new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a
multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece
of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was
still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers
involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the
community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it
would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that
could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office
redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus
in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will
make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she
proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she
recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while
she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's
surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas
or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by
her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the
basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected
City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from
the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents
rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's
attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew
her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the
Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for
Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin
fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as
Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people,
creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally
grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power
to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the
case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated”
her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top
cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure
and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that
an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't
fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation
for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen
contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she
later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to
replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded
for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew
her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in
help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town
introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council
became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She
abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t
like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything
publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got
the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one
of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no
background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great
job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the
high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the
structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this
Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party)
engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some
undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all
her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and
garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a
gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit,
exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from
Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel
politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to
nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget
guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing
projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative
action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply
because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant
she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party
leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated
them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a
fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.
They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and
predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly
stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made
point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's
mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and
experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package
of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march
to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to
global warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state
initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from
pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the
state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s
lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar
bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a
heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more
knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are
regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT
•“Hockey mom”: true for a few years
•“PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary
school, not since
•“NRA supporter”: absolutely true
•social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill
that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships
(said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
•pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to
promote it.
•“Pro-life”: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby
BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life
legislation
•“Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has
residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska.
No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on
supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city
administrator to run town of about 5,000.
•political maverick: not at all
•gutsy: absolutely!
•open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at
explaining actions.
•has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
•”a Greenie”: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores
and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
•fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
•pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city
without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built
streets to early 20th century standards.
•pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on
residents
•pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city
government in Wasilla’s history.
•pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union
doesn’t make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim
that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed
voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting
programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny +
Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local
government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen
when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because
few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out
of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no
fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will
cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100
or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's
attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to
say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in
spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor)
from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of
Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust
for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible
for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are
swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the
population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The
day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the
current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was
5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to
2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.

Anne Kilkenny
annekilkenny@hotmail.com
August 31, 2008

[piglet]

The good folk in small town heartland America are entitled to sneer at those decadent city dwellers (COSMOPOLITANS!) because they have religion, family values, and morality. They are perfectly entitled to parading around a pregnant 17 year old, raised by a career mother who opposes sex education and contraception, as an example of their dedication "pro life". It is okay for social conservatives to judge condescendingly that 17 year old daughter's private life while using her as a political asset. It is perfectly consistent with caring small town family life to announce said 17 year old daughter's wedding in the course of an election campaign press release.

That's family values for you. We depraved, snobbish "big city" folk just can't compete with that level of virtuousness. Especially if we don't even know how to shoot.

[ween]

If you want to get rid of the "us" versus "them" mentality stop beating around the bush and have an election about the following:

1) Race and in particular, unlimited non-white immigration
2) Abortion- for once and for all
3) Guns
4) Taxes, deficits and who pays

Just get it over with and let the chips fall where they may. Have binding referendums on the above and make sure the judiciary understands.

Stop speaking in code.

[Icarus]

Thanks for the above post Alex...it was a worthy read.

While I do believe people pay too much in taxes in the US, especially those in the upper quintile (below the top .1%)...and the republican party usually defends the interests of this group...I am alarmed beyond my limits.

This Palin character is a mess. She's just full of crap.

The vile nature of the lies during the RNC leads me to Obama/Biden more than ever. And, while I hate their tax policies (but agree with foreign policy), and disagree with their social welfare policies...I would rather rely on a strategy of tax avoidance and vote democrat.

I suspect there are many of us...people who have amassed some wealth, and don't want it confiscated so it can be handed out to others. Yet, we want non-invasive foreign policy, and a secular attitude, and hence the democratic party looks better.

I'll vote democrat and focus on tax avoidance.

The Republican party just went off the deep end with Palin.

[swells]

ween, how eactly would one go about having an election about race? Is one for it or agin' it?

While the idea of a series of plebiscites on the topics you suggest seems superficially attractive, it misses an important point; some of these things relate to rights and rights aren't privileges handed out by the state and aren't alterable by the electorate.

What is missing here, in my opinion, is a proper notion of where state power and authority comes from. For instance, the right to defend oneself is not largesse dispensed by the state. Where do guns fit into that? Being what one is not something that is negotiable in my view.

The real battle is between people who think the state has a right to do anything to the people who comprise it and those who hold rights to be a natural consequence of human existence.

In my opinion, both democrats and republicans hold a lot of awfully muddled views on these issues.

[Bruce Wilder]

If the Republicans have lost Icarus, . . . well, my heart grows lighter.

[Icarus]

Yes Wilder...they have lost me.

I was never a fan of the Republican Right, and I consider Christianity the most violent of religions in history. Also, while I do believe in wealth creation, and don't have a philosophical problem with inequality, I would like to see old-white-male american replaced by new entrants.

Palin is a catastrophe (as was the junior bush). It signifies that this party has no real sincerity towards governing. She is as qualified as Harriet Miers, and to think that she's 2nd in command (theoretically) is horrifying.

[Living in the City]

I really don't understand what you are trying to say, Dr. Thoma. A few posts ago (Northern Extremism) you say we need to focus on Sarah Palin's extremism (without saying what that is) and call her a moose eater. Here, you say, in what strikes me as an elitist way, that we need to be sensitive to the rural perspective (values?) that she espouses. So what are the extremist positions we should be targeting? Polls I've seen indicate a majority of Americans consider Creationism a legitimate theory. Significant minorities are supportive of abstinence only education. I suspect a majority of Americans would express opposition to universal health care if it were framed as "socialism". From reading previous posts and this one, I gather that you oppose, for what seem like purely emotional reasons, some restrictions on gun ownership. This is a position that I and many liberals consider extremist. By the way, I grew up in a City and know lots of people who know how to skin a deer. I suspect most hunters live in Cities and their suburbs and provide quite a boost to the economies of small towns every hunting season. I think you're post represents a reverse sort of anti-cosmopolitan elitism that is common among rural people who think their way of life is more pure and "closer to god" than the sinful ways of City folk. I also thought that Sarah Palin gave a great speech and that Obama ought to be very worried, which I'm sure he is because he is a smart guy.

[Mark Thoma]

I was trying to talk about what is, as I see it, not what ought to be.

If I had this to write over again, I would focus more on the "they don't respect our needs" aspect, something like the following.

Where I grew up, people think that the big cities – LA, SF in particular – have all the political power they need to get whatever they want in Sacramento. One example: Water is a huge issue, and people in the north, a largely agrarian area, think "their" water is being stolen and shipped south. The belief is, basically, that if LA wants something, they will eventually get it. There's a large secession movement in the area (northern California and Southern Oregon), you can see the signs along I5 for "The Great State of Jefferson" along with a lot of billboards complaining about water issues. Secessionist rhetoric won't play very well in this area, they understand completely, or are quite used to hearing it. This kind of thing (Wikipedia):In October 1941, the mayor of Port Orford, Oregon, Gilbert Gable, announced that the Oregon counties of Curry, Josephine, Jackson, and Klamath should join with the California counties of Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Modoc to form a new state, later named Jefferson.[1]

Gable proposed creating this new state to draw attention to the condition of the state roads along the Oregon-California border, which at the time were oiled dirt roads that became impassable in rain or snow, and handicapped economic development. …

Gable's act found sympathy throughout the region, who perceived their state legislatures as indifferent to their needs. Siskiyou County especially embraced the cause: the county seat Yreka became the provisional capital, where in November 1941, county representatives met and selected the name Jefferson for their state, in commemoration of Thomas Jefferson, the nation's third president. …

On November 27, 1941, a group of young men gained national media attention when, brandishing hunting rifles for dramatic effect, they stopped traffic on U.S. Route 99 south of Yreka, and handed out copies of a Proclamation of Independence, stating that the state of Jefferson was in "patriotic rebellion against the States of California and Oregon" and would continue to "secede every Thursday until further notice."This movement, or more important the ideas and sentiment, is still very much alive (in the west at least, I know little about the rural Midwest). As I said, the perception is that their needs and wants are ignored by politicians, save for a few bones here and there. There are very few social services where I grew up – certainly no community organizers to help them with their problems. I'd never heard of them until recently.

This belief that they are ignored, looked down upon even, is real, and saying that Obama was a CO is code for saying he's mostly concerned about city issues (and so foreign that you probably hardly know what a CO is, but I'm sure it's believed by the target groups that it probably serves the ghetto -- as they see it, it's partly their money but it doesn't help them much to spend it in this way -- not saying they should feel that way though).

Explaining what a CO does is nice, and necessary, and I'm not trying to say we shouldn't do that, not at all, but the response has to say we understand you feel ignored by the political process, we see you, we understand, and we have plans to help. But simply pointing out what a CO does has the effect or reinforcing the urban nature of Obama's background and raises questions about how visible they will be in his administration.

That's what I'm trying to say. All of these protests about CO's going on simply reinforce that he has mostly been concerned with urban issues. The GOP wants them to believe that their needs will be ignored if Democrats are in power, just like always.

To see how this goes take “hippies”, a term many people are deriding as old fashioned as a code word. That still works, and the formula is very, very simple. Sell the following idea:

1. Hippies don’t work.
2. Hippies live off of food stamps
3. They think your lifestyle is evil, harms the planet, etc.

But the interaction of 2 and 3 is important. They live off of their money (taxes), yet they have the gall to criticize their lifestyle. Sorry, but you don’t bite the hand that’s feeding you, I think that's the thinking - it’s that simple. They’d help if they thought they approved of their way of life, so the key is to convince them that "hippies," or anyone else, has disdain for how they live.

I'm simply saying that understanding these things can make the response more effective. I am not in any way trying to take a moral stance on right or wrong, better or worse, with respect to any lifestyle. Different strokes for different folks, nothing hard about that.

[Kaleberg]

I grew up in a big city, so I got used to all the anti-urban campaign rhetoric that passes for national discourse. Supposedly, Thomas Jefferson started it, or perhaps it was Rosseau with his noble savage crap, or maybe Cincinnatus leaving Rome for his farm, though he most likely cribbed it from some Greek who borrowed it from Homo habilus who got if from an Austrolopithicene. Pardon my French. The implication of urban immorality and general scumminess is very old, but it bothers me less than the fact that the accusers are so heavily dependent on the immoral and scummy ones. It's like the harder they suck the teat, the more they hate mommy.

I live in a small town now, and the folks in the nearby big city and its suburbs are subsidizing my newly moral lifestyle. I know how to read a budget. I suppose I should hate them, but I'll save that for when they stop sending their checks. I suppose that makes me a Democrat.

[Me]

Icarus:

If the Democrats ever had anything against wealth creation it's ancient history now. You wrote:

"I suspect there are many of us...people who have amassed some wealth, and don't want it confiscated so it can be handed out to others. Yet, we want non-invasive foreign policy, and a secular attitude, and hence the democratic party looks better."

I have, of course, no knowledge of your actual financial situation, nor do I wish to. But FYI:
If your income is over $250,000 a year you will face a tax increase under an Obama administration. If your net worth is over $7,000,000 your heirs will be taxed on the excess if the Bush inheritance tax cut is not extended.

I mention these things because polling data show that far more people think they will be liable for these taxes than actually are. Perhaps you have less to worry about than you might have thought.

And I, at least, am throughly sick of science policy pandering to the religious right. This will continue under a McCain administration; what a Palin administration would do is too awful to contemplate.

[Alex Tolley]

Mark Thoma: "I'm simply saying that understanding these things can make the response more effective. I am not in any way trying to take a moral stance on right or wrong, better or worse, with respect to any lifestyle. Different strokes for different folks, nothing hard about that."

But this just addresses the Republicans hoped for "wise country mice vs elitist city mouse" divide. Why pander to that? This sentiment applies to many other groups in society too, so why not counter by showing that these groups are catered for? Are you really saying that your experience differences of life in the country vs your peers in the city are greater than those of say Latinos in the city vs Caucasians in the suburbs?

"...I am not in any way trying to take a moral stance on right or wrong, better or worse, with respect to any lifestyle. Different strokes for different folks, nothing hard about that.

I'm not sure that I buy that. Are you saying that your (or rather your average neighboring citizen) carbon footprint is about the same as a city dweller? Because if the footprint is significantly higher (e.g. driving a 4x4, burning wood for heating), isn't that a choice that has planetary more detrimental effect that other choices? One doesn't have to put a moral judgment on it, but you can argue that it implies a lower empathy for the future well-being for the planet.

[Icarus]

Creationism is about as rational as believing in the Great Pumpkin. Anyone who subscribes to this should be ridiculed and driven out of town.

We can have attitudes critical of secularism, of course. There are many great traditions of critical traditionalism, and even theological arguments against a rampant (and immoral) modernity. Let us not confuse the religious right with a critical religious ethic. The former is a cartoon, and the later will always have a place in cultural politics.

[evagrius]

How much of "rural America" is subsidized by urban America?

How much federal money does Alaska get per capita compared to urbanized states?

[reason]

evagrius
http://www.allbusiness.com/accounting/budget/836054-1.html

May help. (I think it is a bit dated but at least it gives orders of magnitude).

In some ways that is one reason, I think devolution would not be such a bad thing for the US. If the deep south wants to join South America, it might be better to let it.

[swells]

Icarus, while I agree that creationism is laughable, I do believe in freedom. If someone wants to believe it, I may chalk it up to psychological problems but I don't want to drive them out of town. It's when they try to exercise censorship to enforce their views that I get riled up. Trying to fire the librarian who resisted is the most serious failing, to my mind, that has come out in the Palin expose. It's the proof of the pudding that she is unfit for public service to my way of thinking. I think we have to be highly judgemental when it comes to people who will abuse power to further their own ends whether those ends are good ends or bad. It's the character flaw we should be paying attention to.

[evagrius]

Well, it was difficult to really look at the article in depth but, it's obvious to me that Alaska certainly seems to be what some could call a "dependent on the fedral gubmint" state.

I guess they, ( conservatives from rural states), want big gubmint to be off their back but fillin' their pockets.

[ddt]

My impression from this whole thing is that Rove is back. After hearing those speeches I read up on what he is doing, and apparently his protege Steve Schmitt started running the McCain campaign on July 7th. Explains a lot. I imagine that this Palin choice was entirely Rove's choice via his puppet Schmitt. The man is a genius.

From my outsider perspective, they are tapping into some real resentment. I was driving back to Canada from DC through Pennsylvania the night of the Penn. primaries. The next morning we went to get breakfast at a diner just outside of Pittsburgh. I was with a young mic operator who you might call a "hipster" (tight jeans etc.). He was wearing a New York yankees hat that was done in neon colors. The rest of us were dressed pretty conservatively, but when we walked in there was a noticeable reaction from the good ole boys who were all huddled around these two large coffee bars that took up half of the restaurant. When the waitress (actually a very nice lady) seated us, she was like "That's quite the hat you got there. I think it's cute, but the boys over there want to knock it off your head". Nothing actually happened, but it was a very uncomfortable breakfast after that - being stared down by a horde of 20 burly truckers who apparently wanted to knock his block off for nothing more than wearing a funny colored hat.

For me it was a real eye opener. Suburban Pittsburgh isn't exactly the Ozarks, or the deep south, so it really took me aback to see that kind of reaction towards outsiders, just off the interstate. My theory is that it has to do with the lack of economic development, and the struggle that good, hardworking people have in understanding why they have been left behind.

To go back to Nietzsche's groundbreaking study of ressentiment, people can deal with suffering, but what they absolutely cannot do without is a meaning or a narrative for this suffering. Providing this meaning is what the politics of resentment is all about. Eventually, in old europe the masses realized that the proper cause of their suffering was not their own sin, but the ruling class of priests and royalty who were sucking their blood, and eventually they rose up against them. In America the equivalent would be the transnational corporations and the ultra-rich. What the Democrats need to do is appeal to this resentment, but focus it where it ought to be focused.

[ddt]

^^ sorry, posted this under the wrong article, please delete

[ddt]

^^^ sorry, posted this under the wrong article, please delete

[piglet]

"Water is a huge issue, and people in the north, a largely agrarian area, think "their" water is being stolen and shipped south. The belief is, basically, that if LA wants something, they will eventually get it."

Mark, you bring up a very interesting example but then you leave it there. As a matter of fact, agriculture accounts for the vast majority of California's water consumption. The cities are actually working hard to increase efficiency and reduce water consumption per capita (I don't have data on that, if anybody please could point to data). It turns out that you are reiterating another "rural myth".

[piglet]

Of course, when city folk point out this fact (that much more water is used for irrigation than to keep the urban centers alive), they are just being arrogant. And when they (at least some of them) criticize the wastefulness of the dominant agribusiness and support more sustainable models of agriculture, even paying more for it (especially when paying more - how elitist!), they are also being arrogant. When urbanites criticize the suburban life style with its irrigated lawns and golf courses, they are being arrogant. When some urbanites prefer vegetarianism because meat production wastes so much water and other resources, that is the ultimate proof of their arrogance and disconnectedness with true Americans.

Turns out that city folk are always wrong whatever they do or say. Turns out that conservatives (especially if they are millionaires) can insult and ridicule the "city elites" any time without any fear of paying a political price, whereas for a liberal candidate, anyything that might be interpreted as insulting or ridiculing rural Ameria would be career-threatening. How fitting that Washington D.C., the probably most ridiculed city in the world, doesn't even have political representation in the world's "leading democracy".

[Patricia Shannon]

Living in the City says...

I suspect a majority of Americans would express opposition to universal health care if it were framed as "socialism".

True. Many/most people are easily manipulated by labels. I have a friend who is on disability because she has schizophrenia. She called a program to require her to participate in a subsidized work program "socialistic". I had to point out to her that was not the case, that it is the public money that helps her survive that is "socialistic". She has a college degree.

[Volkan Yılmaz]

youtube video izle hatta samsung LCD TV en ucuz plazma tv

[Josh Skope]

Hey, I totally agree about the small town vibes for the true locals down here in Pacific Beach. I moved here about 2 years ago to start going to school at SDSU and there's a huge difference between the kids who live here to party and their political views and the people who have lived here a long time and are much more conservative.

Great post!