The earlier post Love Sick focused on the harm being done to Democrats in particular and the fabric of society in general by Obamaniacs. Now it's the Republicans' turn.

We are cock-eyed optimists at heart. And we have been forever in love with the common man (or woman) who loves his family, his God and his neighbors enough to work hard to make their lives rich and full and better than they are.

I do not think I am alone in my love of these stories. And I think that's why the selection of Governor Sarah Palin as Senator McCain's running mate has struck such a powerful nerve among the electorate. She is not a part of any ruling elite. She comes from no moneyed family. Her family and its strengths and problems are familiar to us all. She's smart, courageous, honest and personable. . .

I love Sarah Palin. I wish her well. She reaffirms after decades of ignoring what is in the heart of every true American: We can indeed move mountains if we have the will to do so, and the person best able to lead us to do that can come from every station of life and every background.

Like Obamania the problem here isn't about the truth, or not, of the basis for love. The problem is loving politicians. They are politicians. Such love always leads to heartbreak, and can even, albeit rarely, be fatal for those who love too deeply.

What is amazing to me is that it is so rare for such a fine, brave, likeable candidate as Mrs. Palin to make it so far. We didn't always have only very rich people or children of politicians running for higher office. Harry Truman, one of my favorite presidents, for one, was a failed haberdasher. I have been trying to figure out when and why we developed an almost iron clad rule that presidential and vice presidential candidates had to fit a certain template -- come from rich and/or politically prominent families, have Ivy League degrees and/ or have spent years in the House or Senate. . .

We've paid dearly for the notion that only a small cadre of Americans are among those fit to serve. For one thing, we have a boringly similar field from which to choose -- people increasingly out of touch with their countrymen and loath to risking anything to advance principled positions. It has made our campaigns tediously predictable and our voters understandably cynical and disengaged.

Every primary season we see the candidates appealing to the outer reaches of their parties, and then swing rapidly to the center once they've sewn up the nominations. What we call "debates" are laughably similar year after year: The candidates pretending it's possible to square their primary positions with their utterly inconsistent stands in the general election and memorizing carefully parsed tip toes through those minefields. The increasingly expensive ad campaigns are filled with the candidate's losing primary opponents' criticisms of him, now strikingly and embarrassingly in contrast to their fulsome praise and endorsements in the general election. The positions they are running for require the exercise of executive authority and yet most of these candidates absolutely lack authenticity.

I think the problem is cultural cringe. The pampered and powdered elites are ashamed of being Americans, colonials, and so they pretend to be courtiers. In the past they went the other way, pretending to be cookie-cutter comrades, to escape their cultural genetics. It's adolescent rebellion, but obscene for those so old.

As I see it, this is a last gasp of the old broadcast world. The consolidation of broadcast media for economic reasons is nearly complete. The days when every town had two newspapers - a morning and an evening publication - are long gone and with their end the authenticity mentioned above disappeared. Local television and radio broadcasts are gone too. For a brief while that made the remaining giants very powerful and the current elitist system developed. That too is ending for economic reasons, and is being replaced by peer networks. There are giants on the networks too, but they can't get away with so much.

The political consequences of this change are mostly still to come. Hillary was pushed aside, but it is still only machine politicians in the mix except for Palin. It isn't clear to me that we will ever have a large appetite for failed haberdashers or log cabin candidates. We began with prominent citizens - Washington, Jefferson, etc. - and have only rarely taken walks on the wild side and brought in outsiders.

Political punditry isn't my thing. I have little confidence in my assessments or predictions on the outcome of races, and usually have little interest in the spectacle. But, I'm enjoying this one now. It's curious how many now see this as a race between Palin and Obama, and find Palin to be the more likeable candidate. While some tried to hamstring her with fud about competence and experience, many see her as being more competent and more experienced than Obama. They would be happy to have her be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

She does seem to be changing the game.

. . . this is the energy election. It will determine our future peace and prosperity. And Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has the energy answer: Our abundant country can produce more energy at lower cost if government gets out of the way. . .

Coming from the natural-resource rich state of Alaska, Palin is an experienced energy expert. She knows more about the economics of energy than senators McCain, Obama, or Biden. And in this year of the oil-shock economy, Palin’s role will be absolutely crucial. “Obama is way off-base on all that. I think those politicians who don’t understand that we need more domestic supply of energy flowing into our hungry markets [are] living in la-la land. And we’re in a world of hurt if they’re agenda continues to be to lock up these safe, secure, domestic supplies of energy.” . . .

it’s a full-throated America-first energy policy that will create millions of high-paying jobs with complete government deregulation and decontrol of the full menu of energy sources: oil, natural gas, nuclear, clean coal, shale, and the alternative fuels of wind, solar, and cellulosic.

Why aren’t all the candidates talking like Palin? How can this great country put its future growth and prosperity in the hands of enemies like Tsar Vladimir Putin, Ahmadinejad, and Hugo Chavez. Well, get ready for Sarah America to take on the fight against all comers.

The plain-talking governor is even tough on John McCain. The senator has said it’s too pristine to drill in ANWR. But Palin told me in June that “Sen. McCain is wrong on that issue. . . . We’re talking about a sliver of the coastal plain of Alaska being explored and drilled for oil. It’s about a footprint of a 2,000-acre plot of land. That’s smaller than the footprint of LAX.”

It's probably a cultural thing, but in my world we depend on our "Sarah Americas" to cut through the crap and make the boys behave. I can imagine her cat-herding our pathetic congress with plain speech and biting humor that shames them for their corruption and incompetence. And that concerns me. She'd make them more effective by going over their heads to the public, who would in turn put pressure on congress critters to behave. The last thing I want is a more effective congress since their policies create as many or more problems as they solve. She would thus be a mixed blessing for me.

The more I read the more it becomes apparent to me that it wasn't an impulsive choice by McCain as some insinuate in an attempt to damage both McCain and Palin. It was Democrats and the media - same thing - that were caught unaware, but Republicans and fellow travelers had been tracking her for many months. She's news to me but not to them, and that concerns me too. The MSM is an ever greater liability. They simply aren't very good at what they do.

It's still early days. I have no clue how this will all work out. But the prospect of a few boring months of Obama's unctuous smoothness with nothing but McCain's rasping to dilute it is gone. She'll be less able to criticize McCain now that she is on the ticket, at least in public, but I look forward to watching her run. I hope it doesn't turn out like one of those new television series that has an interesting pilot episode but can't sustain the initial energy and interest. I'm prepared to watch a few episodes if she, and her writers, can keep it up.

Update: Normal clarity

Wanting to elect a regular guy is treated as being on a par with wanting average people in positions of authority; and this, in turn, Harris equates with going for an average neurosurgeon. Well, first of all, being a neurosurgeon requires a formal qualification where being a politician doesn't. So we look for ability in political leaders without demanding from them the years of study and the certification earned on that basis. Experience and the qualities of judgement, prudence, capacity to cope under pressure or in an emergency, etc., are what we hope for, and these we assess on the basis partly of the politician's record and his or her performance under scrutiny of the media and the public.

Secondly, therefore, wanting a regular guy (of either gender) - for those who do want that - should not be merely assumed to mean wanting an average politician. A regular guy, as I take it, is someone without airs, to whom you can imagine yourself chatting, who doesn't talk down to you, with whom indeed you could have a beer or a cup of tea, and all the rest of it. There's nothing to say from this that his or her abilities in filling a position of authority must be no better than average. That presupposes that high ability in a politician goes with some kind of social stand-offishness. Why?

Perhaps it's a genetic predisposition not tempered by adequate intellect.

Pretty people are initially assumed to be more able. Tall men are assumed to be more commanding. It seems to be a sort of sexual selection artifact where characteristics that might well be costly signals of genetic physical superiority - better immune systems, more symmetrical development etc. - are confused with intellectual superiority and fine character, though it is often just the opposite. Fine manners and speech are somewhere in between physical and intellectual value. There is some intellect involved, though not much, and can conceal poor character rather than reveal it.

In this as in so many things we would do well to check our impulses and think more clearly. He or she may be pretty and well mannered, but that is no qualification for tasks that require character and judgment.

Update: Barack's Berserkers

Democrats had only to maintain their composure and the White House would be theirs. . . But instead of protecting their precious advantage, they succumbed to a spasm of hatred and threw the vase, the crockery, the cutlery and the kitchen sink at an obscure politician from Alaska.

They might have soberly examined her reputation as an opponent of political corruption to see if she was truly the reformer she claimed to be. They might have gently mocked her idiotic creationism, while carefully avoiding all discussion of the racist conspiracy theories of Barack Obama’s church. . .

But instead of following a measured strategy, they went berserk. On the one hand, the media treated her as a sex object. . . On the other, liberal journalists turned her family into an object of sexual disgust: inbred rednecks who had stumbled out of Deliverance.

Hatred is the most powerful emotion in politics. At present, American liberals are not fighting for an Obama presidency. I suspect that most have only the haziest idea of what it would mean for their country. The slogans that move their hearts and stir their souls are directed against their enemies: Bush, the neo-cons, the religious right. . .

When a hate campaign goes wrong, however, disaster follows. And everything that could go wrong with the campaign against Palin did. . .

In an age when politics is choreographed, voters watch out for the moments when the public-relations facade breaks down and venom pours through the cracks. Their judgment is rarely favourable when it does. Barack Obama knows it. All last week, he was warning American liberals to stay away from the Palin family. He understands better than his supporters that it is not a politician’s enemies who lose elections, but his friends

Well, the election isn't lost yet. My view is that the results of the election will be unchanged. All that has happened is that the ethical and intellectual bankruptcy of Democrats and the media have been displayed in garish light. This isn't news, it's just TMI. We knew who they were and how they were all along. Now we just have some more unpleasant reminders of how degraded the left in general and the Democrats in particular have become.

America will vote for them anyway since they are unconvinced that they have a better alternative. It's not a matter of choosing the lesser evil - they are as evil as they come - it's just their turn. When all candidates are undesirable then the best you can do is to alternate and otherwise seek to impede them. Politics is stupid, ugly and hateful.