Ixnay on the ack-of-experiencelay

Liberals would do well to tread softly on Sarah Palin's provincialism -- her lack of advanced degrees, her small-town background; her limited, mostly religiously-informed conceptions of world affairs -- since Republicans view this as their strongest connection to the ranks of middle-America workers to whom the election now largely belongs.

Whatever Palin lacks in political experience, she is more "like" the average blue-collar worker for precisely that reason. Republicans hope that to attack her for lack of proper pedigree is to tell working people that they suffer the same basic deficiency, owing mainly to their station in life. In an electoral process which more closely resembles a season of American Idol than any rational deliberation over policy, who people "like" is unfortunately the basis on which public appointments to the executive branch are made. Remember we are talking about a country that endorsed eight years of George Bush because he was so "authentically lacking" it evoked a familiarity of people with whom we have shared beers.