House of Eratosthenes

A week ago, most Americans had never heard of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Now, following a Vice Presidential acceptance speech viewed live by more than 40 million people, Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of American voters.
:
The new data also shows significant increases in the number who say McCain made the right choice and the number who say Palin is ready to be President. Generally, John McCain’s choice of Palin earns slightly better reviews than Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden.

Perhaps most stunning is the fact that Palin’s favorable ratings are now a point higher than either man at the top of the Presidential tickets this year. As of Friday morning, Obama and McCain are each viewed favorably by 57% of voters. Biden is viewed favorably by 48%.

What methods have been used by the “leftist attack squads” to achieve such stellar levels of ineffectuality? Blogger friend Phil has a great round-up. Traitor…holy warrior…connected to Jack Abramoff…pregnant daughter…and a lot of others.

Alaska's Hottest Governor He forgot one, though. Palin is inexperienced. You’ve heard that one, right? It just goes to show how desperate John McCain is, because if he wants to pander to the female vote there are a whole lot of other women he could have named who are far more experienced.

A couple days after hearing this, I noticed this is one of the few anti-Palin talking-points on which the left is not being sexist. Or creative. It’s the “Dan Quayle” rule, twenty years old this year, and it goes something like this: Born after Pearl Habor, got it goin’ on upstairs, conservative — you may have two out of those three. No baby-boomer Republican who achieves national importance is allowed to be smart.

This particular talking point crashed and burned with Palin, because experience counts in just two different ways: It suggests you learned how to do your job by doing it; and it suggests others have had the opportunity to learn something about you. Neither one of those can be pondered, with regard to Gov. Palin, and diverted toward a conclusion about her that is negative. Therefore, in all the ways that matter, she’s as experienced as any balanced aribiter would wish for her to be.

It would appear that this “The People” of whom the pollsters and power-brokers are constantly speaking, has figured this out. And I don’t think they did it by listening to rhetoric from one side or the other. They done it all by themselves. But there is something far more significant happening here. This time, the message came through starkly, clearly, and within a relatively short period of time; just a little over a week. The dialog was something like this.

The Left: We hate her! She’s inexperienced and incapable!
The People: Huh. She seems to be pretty capable. And besides, those guys hate her. Cool.

In these post-Carter years, The People have repudiated The Left fairly often in our national elections. Seven out of the last ten presidential elections have gone that way; so have five of the last seven. A couple of years ago The Left managed to take Congress. From listening to them crow about it, it would seem they’d have no qualms at all with the election of 2006 being held aloft as the template for the narrative in which The People grow weary of Republican leadership, and decide to entrust the workings of government to those better, nobler guys. The problem that comes up, though, is that this is the “Mark Foley” Congress; it wasn’t elected on the issues, or on the superior innate goodness of the democrat slate of humans. What happened was, the elections were right around the corner, and in late September the Los Angeles Times dropped a Babe Ruth bar in the punch bowl. That’s it. Hello democrat Congress — manifestation of The People’s modern and passionate desire for progressive government.

So The People have had their shot at showing their support for progressive ideology. Here and there they nibble at it. But overall, they don’t want it. Now we just have more proof to this; The Left says you can’t be a good leftist in good standing if you show any support for Gov. Palin, and The People say: Okeedokee!

But the real reason why Sarah Palin is so popular? Her supporters. People like me.

You see, for the last forty years The People have been buried in all these images of supposed sexism and non-sexism…in our politicians…in legislation…in our teevee sitcoms…at the water cooler. They’ve been lied-to the entire time, and they know it. Sexists claim to be non-sexists perpetually, 24 hours a day, seven days a week — half the time, when they do that, they point to some other guy as a sexist, who really isn’t one. And it’s widely understood that that’s a lie, too. It’s been flying around thick and fast.

That’s what is so refreshing about the Palin movement. Here, you see gender-blindness for real, and probably for the very first time. We are for McCain/Palin…emphasis on the last two of those syllables. We’re for them, because we’re for her. It’s the “Sarah Palin and that old guy she’s running with” movement. And the fact that she’s a woman, counts neither as a plus or a minus, in our eyes. We really don’t give a good goddamn. In modern times, nobody has ever seen a woman in politics draw this kind of support, from supporters who manage to arouse from themselves such a stunning, blinding apathy toward the fact that she is one. And that is what is so inspirational to everyone else.

The leftist attack soldiers say the pick is a cynical, pandering move, made for the express purpose of attracting women. The truth is, the pandering of which they speak, is the status quo. We’ve been neck-deep in it for generations now; culturally bludgeoned into saying out loud this-woman or that-woman was picked for her abilities and not because she was a woman…in fantastic, surreal situations in which no thinking person believes that to be true. The Left just doesn’t get it — people are rallying around Gov. Palin because her selection is the end of this kind of nonsense, not the beginning of it.

This point is nailed — as in, bulls-eye — by Jeffrey Bell, writing in the latest issue of The Weekly Standard. He buttons this one down in just two sentences:

But it was precisely the venom of the left’s assault that heightened the drama and made it a riveting television event. Palin benefited from her ability to project full awareness of the volume and relentlessness of the attacks without showing a scintilla of resentment or self-pity.

We like her politics. We like her dedication to the principles behind them. And we love how she doesn’t apologize for this. We admire her for her drive, and for her scruples. After those, the experience she does have, is just frosting on the cake; it is more than sufficient for the task at hand. Keep arguing with us on that point, leftist ankle-biters, and you’ll just drive up her approval ratings even higher.

I can’t wait to watch it happen.

“[Senator Reid] said, quote, “I can’t stand John McCain.” Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps no accolade we hear this week is better proof that we’ve chosen the right man.” — Sarah Palin

Yup.

As you pointed out last night, “She’s not qualified” is an opinion. It’s the blatant misstatement of facts — often obfuscated because it’s typically (but not always) lying by omission. “McCain picked a former small-town mayor”. “She cut this or that budget.” (it depends on what you think the definition of “cut” means. By all means, “cut” my salary if that’s “cutting”.)

I was thinking this morning after reading your “rehash” post … If you want to talk “facts” about what qualifies you to be president or vice president, isn’t it pretty much

* 35 years or over. Check.
* Natural born American Citizen. Check.
* Hasn’t served two terms as President. Check.

Maybe there’s something in there about felonies, but I’ve seen some third party tickets that had some questionable people on them so that might not even be one.

After that it’s opinion. And isn’t that why we vote? I mean, if qualification was all “fact” based, we could just feed resumes into a computer and it would spit out the “most qualifed” person. No election necessary.

But no, we insist on inspecting things that are important to us, such as Character (which both McCain and Palin have in spades), positions on issues we care about, and effectiveness (I like a candidate who actually takes a “yes” or “no” position on issues — but not being one doesn’t “disqualify” you, technically. However, it does disqualify you from my vote … because my list is longer than the above, and I get to make the list.)
- philmon | 09/06/2008 @ 11:30
And isn’t that why we vote? I mean, if qualification was all “fact” based, we could just feed resumes into a computer and it would spit out the “most qualifed” person. No election necessary.

Well said, Phil; and great point. Our Palin-haters have trudged at least past the first milestone on the way to complete insanity:

The first step to insanity is to confuse the subjective with the objective. This is necessary. You can’t go insane without this, but it’s much easier to do than you might think. All you have to do is think of value judgments, inferences, and other cognitions of yours as measurable when they’re not, and vice-versa; lose track of, and any interest in, what another capable mind might conclude when looking at the same thing. Simply put, you insist on debating things that aren’t really debatable, and settle on the realization that anyone who thinks differently than you do must be a flaming idiot or must have something wrong with them. Stop believing in perspective. Things are the way you think they are…unless you don’t like whatever that is, and then there must be “shades of gray” involved.

I remember there was some version of The Three Musketeers (I really can’t remember which one it was) in which there was a scene where the Cardinal Richelieu remarked in passing that he didn’t believe in God. I think that situation fits whoever is at the top of the left-wing power structure, the guy who’s responsible for figuring out “Palin is unqualified!” and faxing the talking points out. That guy must understand this is not something measurable, and is therefore open to the formation of personal opinions — because he took on the job of forming it. But then, as the body of the serpent follows the head, it does so because of this delusion that the comment being made is not determined by personal tastes or experience or desires, and instead is the product of some kind of measuring process. To be good leftists, they have to liberate themselves from the idea that there is some meaningful difference between these two. Which, logically, leads to your nonsensical statement about the computer.

That looks like a fun argument to try out. I shall steal it. Soon.
- mkfreeberg | 09/06/2008 @ 12:44
Yeah, I think this is going to morph into a post.
- philmon | 09/06/2008 @ 13:22
A couple of years ago The Left managed to take Congress. From listening to them crow about it, it would seem they’d have no qualms at all with the election of 2006 being held aloft as the template for the narrative in which The People grow weary of Republican leadership, and decide to entrust the workings of government to those better, nobler guys.

Ummm, not exactly. If you look closely at the 2006 elections, you’ll note the Democrats won by being just a little bit smarter than us… meaning: the GOP. Smarter because they ran a slate of conservative Democrats, moderate Democrats. The Blue Dogs, in other words. And that really worked for them, because the GREAT majority of Americans are solidly in the middle and not the fringes… of either side. So, yeah… the Democrats ARE crowing, but not for the reasons you mention.

It’s becoming increasing clear to me that you live in a black and white world, Morgan. And your world ain’t exactly working out for us… the conservatives… right now. There seems to be a war on… the die-hard, ultra right-wing of the Republican party vs. the moderates. You spend a lot of time arguing about moral imperatives, e.g., who is and who isn’t a REAL conservative, rather than figuring out ways to move this country forward.

And about which: the GOP bills itself as a Big Tent Party, one where all are welcome and all points of view are heard. Except for those who deviate from orthodoxy, under the current way of thinking… at least before McCain got the nomination. And you make the point yourself, with your Palin-praise and half-hearted, grudging support of McCain. Am I wrong? I think not.

Interesting times.
- Buck | 09/06/2008 @ 13:23
The way I see it, the far Left has gained too much control in the Democratic party. I honestly hope this election helps the Donks push them back to the margins. The democrats played waaaaay too much footsie with the rabid anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-Christian, anti-Capitalist Left to get the money and support they needed to “throw the [republican] bums out.”

And there are certainly Republican bums.

I have friends who are die-hard Democrats. Most of them aren’t voting for Obama. Some of them are — not because they like him, but because he’s a Democrat. I keep telling those ones, “kick the socialsts back to the sidelines and take your party back”.

The problem with the “move the country forward” cry is that we disagree which way “forward” is. If we go “forward” down one road, we end up in a different place than if we go “forward” down another road. And there are lots and lots of roads.

Me, I started voting generally Republican rather than Libertarian after Al Gore almost won the 2000 election. Scared the b-jebers out of me. I figure the general direction I want to head is “west”, so I’m jumping on the stagecoach that’s most successful at heading in that general direction. I’m doing my best, while we’re aboard, to convince them we want to end up in San Diego rather than San Fransisco, and hope I can have a say in the steering along the way.

The Dems were smarter and ran Blue Dogs, but look who ended up with the top positions. The extreme Left. The blue dogs are being used. Some of ’em know it.

This was most recently illustrated when Pelosi told them in private they could support drilling back home to help get them elected — but it’s only so she and her cohorts can maintain power and push their agenda through. She’s not gonna let the drilling happen if she has any say over it — and she will if she retains a majority — regardless of how individual democrats campaign back home.

The only hope is that some of this hyper-partisanship can be broken — maybe the blue dogs will learn to bite inside their party.

This is one of the main reasons I like Palin … she appears willing to call people out no matter what letter they have after their names, and we need a lot more of that. Only a serious internal house cleaning will restore the Republican brand name to what it was in the Contract With America days.
- philmon | 09/06/2008 @ 18:55
Oh, to continue with that stagecoach metaphor, to me it appears that the Democrats want to end up in Boston.
- philmon | 09/06/2008 @ 18:57
It’s becoming increasing clear to me that you live in a black and white world, Morgan. And your world ain’t exactly working out for us… the conservatives… right now.

I believe in thinking long and hard about what’s moderate, versus what’s extreme. It’s easy to flip them around. And I think your peeve here, much as I agree with the legitimacy of it, is a case in which we’ve been clearly snookered. I would explore it this way: To the casual observer, it would seem to be extreme to say “we live in a black and white world”. But to look at this in a way that squares with reality, you have to look at it across a wide pantheon of issues…and across time.

So what’s the debate — “Everything is in black and white, all the time” — versus — “Sometimes there are shades of gray involved”?

Or is it “There are always shades of gray involved” — versus — “Sometimes, every once in awhile, you bump into a situation where there is only black and white”.

I think if the debate is the first of those two, the shades-of-gray people are the moderates, and the black-n-white people like me are the extremists. Which would make our point of view the fragile one. Except I don’t buy into that. I think the second debate is a more accurate encapsulation of where the schism lies. Are there SOME issues in which a middle-of-the-road position is nonsensical? At all?

Well, I do think there are — sometimes. And I think, in believing that, my position is the moderate one. Somewhere on today’s pages I used the toilet analogy —

Like I keep telling people…you got one guy who says humans breathe air, another guy says humans breathe water, you don’t go sticking your face in the toilet half the time to achieve compromise.

This is what’s hurting your conservative movement, Buck. Conservatives buy into the idea that if you act liberal half the time, they get people to adore them who otherwise wouldn’t. But that means letting vicious violent people out of jail half the time; hiking the minimum wage half as high; grabbing half as many guns; and putting four or five weirdos on the Supreme Court just because. It waters down the conservative message. And even worse, once the dust has settled, nobody likes them any better because they stuck their faces in the toilet half the time. They just think, rightfully so, that conservatives look silly.

Good food-fer-thought, though. I’ll make it a post of its own, sometime soon. If I get the chance to this weekend.
- mkfreeberg | 09/06/2008 @ 20:13
Well said, Phil, and I like the stagecoach metaphor. I find it interesting we’re on the same page regarding voting, except that I got there slightly before you… after I threw away my vote on Perot and Bubba made it into the White House. I still feel supremely guilty over that lil incident, which wasn’t little AT ALL. But: live and learn. Which is also why I was very strident about taking Morgan to task for his reluctance to back McCain.

Morgan… To be perfectly clear: I’m not attacking you. I appreciate your response, i.e., “food for thought,” because that’s exactly the way I meant my comment to be taken. And to further clarify: there are some positions that are non-negotiable. First on my list: withdrawal from Iraq before we achieve victory. And you know there may be more… Hell, there are more. But: nuff said. 😉
- Buck | 09/06/2008 @ 21:04
Like I keep telling people…you got one guy who says humans breathe air, another guy says humans breathe water, you don’t go sticking your face in the toilet half the time to achieve compromise.

And it’s things like this that got me hooked on reading this blog.

That’s the day I proudly donned the “nobody” hat.
- philmon | 09/06/2008 @ 22:12
And that is the fundamental disagreement between myself and my friend down in New Mexico.

And to clarify my position on this — I, too, voted for that jug-eared bozo in ’92. And I, too, have flagellated myself over the results.

I stopped when I pondered earnestly the reason I was tempted to abandon “George Pere” in the first place. I didn’t hate him. I wasn’t even tired of him. In fact, I didn’t even disagree with him passionately on anything. My beef with him, was the Lamb of God’s beef with the Church of Laodicea in Revelation^3:16: So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

It is human nature to suppose some vast majority automatically agrees with the individual even on mundane details. And perhaps I’m surrendering to that fallacy here. I dunno ’bout that. But I *do* know about this: I did not vote for George Pere in the ’92 elections, because George Pere failed to give me a reason to do so. He stood for nothing. He stood for the letter “R”.

And as highly as my good blogger friend in Portales rates in my inner circle, I believe he’s unable to address this: Reagan had no such problem. And I’ve seen the same pattern in Bush’s kid. He acts like a common-sense conservative, his approval rating goes up. He acts like a liberal, and it gets hard to distinguish exactly what difference he offers from the opposition…his approval rating tanks.

That’s what this post is about. I don’t think liberalism has any popular support. At all. In my lifetime, when liberals win elections, it’s the direct result of some kind of scandal. I see no evidence at all that their worldview finds any meaningful, principled support out of the great majority of Americans that are solidly in the middle. To put it another way, what we call conservatism nowadays, is the middle. It’s common sense ideas — like, when you lower taxes, the economy flourishes. DUH. And when you build more prisons and throw people in ’em who commit crime, crime goes down. Again: DUH.

Liberalism is essentially the posing of whimsical and ironic challenges to these paradigms, which are found to be tediously simplistic. The catch is that the paradigms are tediously simplistic because that is the way reality is — which means mature adults eventually tire of the ironic challenges. I’m pretty sure most of us are just about there.

But as far as this emotional desire to avoid repeating the pattern of what happened in ’92, of course I agree with Buck 110% on that. I’d be nuts not to. I just disagree about what to do about it now.
- mkfreeberg | 09/06/2008 @ 22:27
Ah, we’re getting somewhere now. The trick is that you have different points on the time line, and a different response depending on when you are. It’s like a thousand fast, small, clear creeks making up a great, slow, muddy river. You should burn with fire and passion when the great dance begins, years before the election. As the election gets closer and your choices are less and impure, you must be binary, and slog across the finish line with the loser you got saddled with. The clarity of purpose many hope for (at the end of the race) only happens if a dam breaks, scourging the valley clean. Fun to watch, but you and I live in the valley….. The sad fact is that the RINO’s get their way more then we do because they vote early and often. Too many conservatives show up after the bread has been baked, asking for a slice. Getting a voice is easy. It does take years of work and dull meetings, and a willingness to play some ball. It takes both Don Quixote and Sancho to get things done. I prefer Don, he’s a fun guy to be around. Sancho is a greaseball. But a wheel needs some grease…..
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 09/07/2008 @ 00:03

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