Well, there’s one thing for sure, we know why we like Sarah Palin — because she pulled herself up by her own darn bootstraps. In her lifetime, nothing except grit and determination has been handed to her. And with that she climbed the ladder of political success under her own sheer will to attain and to leave her mark. I would say she has done so, for many of us do identify with that kind of grit and determination. It is still known by many Americans as ‘the American dream’. Here is a story by Raphael Alexander of The National Post, a Canadian newspaper of note, and his take on why grassroots Americans feel almost like neighbors with Sarah Palin.
Why people like Palin
by Raphael Alexander
Posted: October 02, 2009, 4:20 PM by NP Editor
Full Comment Canadian politics, Raphael Alexander
The editorial of the Full Comment section in the National Post seems to infer what millions assumed about Sarah Palin before: that she’s done, through, washed up, and yet still stands in the spotlight as the hook draws ever nearer. I don’t blame them. She’s been doubted before, and yet she continues to steam ahead oblivious to cries of her inexperience and suggestions that she’s a “blithering idiot”:
There are a lot of conservatives who don’t like Sarah Palin, and they’re probably quite right to do so. It’s true that her popularity is not derived from her wit, intelligence, or cerebral prowess in general. In fact, that’s what makes her so alluring to millions of Americans, and a fair share of Canadians, in the first place.
She isn’t another summa cum laude graduate from Princeton like Sonia Sotomayor. She doesn’t strike anyone as an academic, or even draw upon her education during interviews with the media in order to impress upon people her knowledge and insights. And that again appeals to the ordinary people throughout the United States who embrace her.
Sarah Palin was born to a mother who was a school secretary and a father who was a science slash gym teacher. Her aspirations weren’t particularly rooted in education, but in the fundamentals of nationalism and patriotism. Athletic and competitive by nature, she was head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and captain of the basketball team that won the Alaska state championship in 1982.
Turning to beauty contests, she won the Miss Wasilla pageant, and finished third in the Miss Alaska pageant which bought her a college education. She attended five different colleges over six years, finally receiving a B.S. in communications with an emphasis in journalism from the University of Idaho. Early on in her career she wanted to work in sports as a broadcaster, but quickly settled down with her childhood sweetheart Todd Palin to have a family. She eloped, knowing her parents “couldn’t afford a big white wedding.”
Sarah Palin is a classic populist politician. What makes her so popular is her very nature. She is the definition of “grassroots”, a working mother who successfully entered politics at the municipal level and worked her way up to the governorship. She didn’t manage this by impressing people with her five different institutions of education, or how many books she had written on Russian foreign policy. No, she managed it because she inspired Americans who felt that Sarah was “one of them.”
For every housewife who dreamed of being more, but had to contend with the responsibilities of raising a family, Palin inspires a strange kind of anti-feminism. There is a perceptible sense of pride that one can be “just average”, with all of the same human failings and shortcomings as everybody else. Of course Palin isn’t just your average woman, since her attraction is based on the conglomeration of attitude, personality, and prerogative. She likes hunting, ice hockey, and plain drinking. She isn’t bothered by a turkey being slaughtered in the background as she talks cheerfully about her ideas. There is no burden of intellectual superficiality to her, as there is with Barack Obama, a man who has shown remarkable poise and oratory talents when he is properly handled, but wobbles when put in the hot seat without his notes.
Considering she’s been written off by so many people, Palin is doing very well to avoid being washed downstream. Her new book, already panned by the media as being a flip-book, is a best seller without having actually been released yet. And although the “serious” wing of the mainstream media continues to edge that hook toward her neck, Palin continues to elude it through massive level of popularity in blogs, radio, and conservative publications.
And it doesn’t matter whether she couldn’t finish one term in office as Governor, or that she got caught looking lost in an interview with Katie Couric, or even that her book will be unlikely to win praise from reviewers. Her supporters continues among the same people who aren’t going anywhere soon: the average American with 2 cars, and 3 or more kids, football practice during the week, hunting and fishing on the weekends, and the “down home” family values that seem to say “we’re not perfect, but we’re trying”. You can’t buy that kind of “in” with the people. It has to come naturally, and that’s why Sarah Palin fits the bill.
Raphael Alexander is a Vancouver-based blogger. Read more here.
