Okay, Let Me Spell It Out for You...

I have read some of the most incredible things about Sarah Palin in the last few days, not a little of it from Republicans. Some, of course, have said very nice things about her, but quite a few have also said very nasty things about her. It is fairly plain that some simply cannot understand why she is so popular. And she is popular, folks. She is, as far as I know, the only Republican that could probably fill an auditorium on short notice anywhere in the United States--which leads me to believe that, vulgar as it sounds, part of the reason for some people's animosity is simple jealousy, that is, their candidate cannot do that.

One commentator, having first opined that Mrs. Palin is "intellectually undistinguished" and inept and unqualified in various ways, let us in on the secret of her staying power: she's good-looking!

Oh. Well, I guess. She is widely held to be a good-looking woman, but I have a hard time believing that her good looks catapulted her to the governorship, and then to the second spot on the GOP ticket. I mean, if all GOP voters are looking for is someone good-looking, they can go down to any mall in America and have their pick. There are good-looking women all over the place.

But I will readily admit that Sarah Palin isn't my idea of the perfect conservative. While she is clearly not stupid (despite the repeated attempts to portray her as such) she doesn't appear to be the sort of deep thinker that John Adams was. She doesn't appear to have the expertise that allowed Alexander Hamilton to write his Report on Manufactures. She's no Samuel Rutherford, nor a Thomas Reid. That doesn't mean I wouldn't vote for her; you have to compare her to who else is available, and frankly, there isn't anyone running, as far as I can tell, that I would think of as a real conservative, no one whom I would think of as particularly intellectually distinguished or extraordinarily talented, intelligent, and informed. It seems pointless to complain of Sarah Palin's lack of intellectual gravitas when comparing her to the likes of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee (I am not calling either gentleman stupid, merely pointing out that they don't exactly come across as intellectual heavyweights, either. And don't get me started on the intellectual heft of candidates on the Left.).

And Sarah Palin does have one thing going for her, one thing that all of us red-state rednecks can see quite clearly, and since so many commentators don't quite seem to grasp it, I'll spell it out for those folks in small words:

She.

Means.

It.

All Republican candidates, for example, blah-blah about the Second Amendment. Sarah Palin shoots moose, and apparently has been doing stuff like that all her life. I mean, my word, the woman pretty obviously actually likes guns! All Republican candidates blah-blah about "values." Sarah Palin cares for Trig, and actually belongs to and has always attended church--not a politician's church, but honest-to-goodness reg'lar ol' redneck churches. All Republican candidates blah-blah about small government. Sarah Palin actually tries to shrink the wretched thing. And so on down the line.

The reality is that not one of the other potential candidates I can think of comes across this way. They all give the impression of--how's the best way to put this?--playing the role of someone with conservative values, of simply trying to say the right things to get red-state, conservative voters to support them. Well, okay--maybe Huckabee doesn't always come across that way, at least not on some issues, but he sure does sometimes.

Sarah Palin may not have the intellectual firepower of a John Adams (but how many people do?), but she appeals to voters--many of us, anyway--because it's so obvious that she's not just playing a role.

I hope that it's a little bit clearer now.