Intelligence and the Urban/Rural Voter

I've added Sarah Palin to the (exceedingly long) list of things that trigger the trapdoor in my head.
This is not an easy thing to do when I read reddit obsessively...because the folks on reddit are (still) obsessed with Sarah Palin. I find myself having to skip over what seems like half the content on the site.

It's not Palin herself I'm trying to avoid, mind you. What I saw of her before I decided to add her to the list impressed me. Yes, I'll write that out loud, and mean it. I still don't think she's qualified to be POTUS--which is by no means a knock on her, because damned few people are--but she impresses me in quite a different way from how Obama impresses me. Palin strikes me as authentic, charming, an interesting mixture of political innocence (read that as 'naivete' if you must) and ruthlessness. She has a mile-wide anti-intellectual streak that bothers me immensely, but which even I know resonates with much of Republican middle America.

All in all, I personally see plenty to dislike about her policies. I think it fair to suggest I disagree with her on, well, just about everything.

But.

The visceral hatred people have for this woman is extraordinary. I find it disturbing. Some of it is undoubtedly sexist...or maybe it's just that there are nastier names to call women, I don't know. But I've seen the c-word thrown around like confetti, to use but one example. I subscribe to the late George Carlin's philosophy that there are no bad words, only bad thoughts and bad intentions...but I've yet to hear that c-word spoken with the best of thoughts and intentions, you know what I mean?

What is it about Palin that causes so many people to abandon all pretense of civility and sling words that'd make a sailor blush? She's not book-smart, at least from what I've seen of her, but does that make her less than human, somehow? 

I used to work with a guy who was, at best, functionally illiterate. Even simple paperwork proved to be beyond his ability to cope with. He tried--for a whole week--then gave up, saying the job just wasn't for him.

Of course, he wouldn't come right out and say he couldn't read. I found it a real shame that he could display what must have been a boatload of courage to try and fake it for a week, but absolutely balked at the prospect of being found out.

I said all that to say this: the guy was remarkably intelligent. He had political theories out the wazoo and some pretty solid insights on how things ought to be. He seemed to me to be a go-getter type, as long as that ambition didn't involve people discovering his handicap.

By no means am I suggesting this man should be a candidate for high political office. I am saying his views shouldn't be automatically discounted. I'm also saying that Sarah Palin may not know her Iliad from her Odyssey--but so what? Presidents have advisors, after all. 

I've seen the bookish cast aside so often that I've come to regard that species of intelligence as a political disability. Even up here in Canada, where we smugly look down our noses at the redneck Yanks, we're not above shunning a Preston Manning...or a Stephane Dion. Harper's undoubtedly a wonk, but he can at least appear tough. Paul Martin couldn't, not when he never met a cause he didn't like. And Dion? Don't make me laugh.

It's worse in the Excited States. Hollywood has gifted America with a tough-guy image for its politicians to live up to.  There might as well be a big wooden sign on the doors of the White House: NERDS NOT ALLOWED. 

I think people are still trying to sort out how they feel about women in politics. There's a faction  of feminists who seem to want them to imitate all the worst behaviors in men; who view feminine success in essentially masculine terms. These people adore Hillary Clinton, who is cold, calculating, and power-hungry. Here's a women to whom the word bitch has been applied...with admiration. I've heard men and women say of Hillary, she's got a set of brass balls on her. 

Sarah's a kind of anti-Hillary. It's pretty clear she puts her family first, and not just when it might be politically expedient to do so. She's nobody's victim and would never stoop so low as to appear to be one. Hillary Clinton could probably run intellectual circles around Palin, but to the sort of person who puts authenticity first, that matters little.

Who are the sorts of people who put authenticity first? I hate to indulge in a stereotype, but that'd be your rural or small-town people living simple (but never easy) lives--the people dismissed by slick urbanites as "hicks" but who refer to themselves as "jus' plain folks", there being no higher compliment in their lexicon.

Authenticity is less important in the big city...because interaction with your fellow stranger is limited, and when it does occur, games of intellectual one-upmanship almost invariably follow.

Both elections this year, the Canadian and the American, are shaping up to be less about political ideology or even class divide than about the rural/urban split. The heavily urbanized stretches on both coasts of the U.S. are prime Obama country, and he's going to do well with blacks nationwide (except for the ones who call him "uppity", and don't think there aren't a few who do).

But if you're white and rural, you're going to vote for McCain, who's almost a caricature of the hero who has a statue in his honour on the town square. And you love Sarah Palin, not despite her simplicity but because of it. In your mind, you equate simple with what works...because that's the way it is in your world. Leave that highfalutin' intellectual horseshit to them city slickers.

Do you hate your country cousin? Can you concede that maybe, just maybe, that country cousin might have something valuable to contribute? That he might even be able to teach you something?