So there is a non-trivial chance that the Republican nomination contest could come down to Palin vs. Romney, and that their conflict could define the primaries. And that’s very bad news for the Republican party. A campaign that pits the two against each other would divide the Republican party along each of its fault lines.Funny. I thought presidential elections were about what is best for the country, not the Republican party. Silly me. However, he shows the true problem that the Establishment and Elites have with Governor Palin and other conservatives. In the eyes of the elitist Establishment, their greater problem is not with the Left or the Democrats in Washington; it is with people like Governor Palin who have the potential to rid them of their hold on the Republican party.
Pennuru later goes on to describe the class struggle within the party:
Class is another increasingly uncomfortable fault line in the party (as Reihan Salam and I recently described in these pages). Romney’s supporters tend to be college-educated, while Palin draws her support from people who didn’t get college diplomas. In recent elections, upper-middle-class voters have left the Republican party in part because they regard it as dominated by yahoos and know-nothings. But other voters, particularly in the party’s base, resent what they see as a tendency to overestimate the importance of degrees from prestigious colleges.While recent polling data supports his assertion with regards to education, Pennuru exemplifies how out-of-touch many of the elites/Establishment are. The class issue is not an issue of education level; it's an issue of entitlement and character. The Establishment feels the "next in line", such as Mitt Romney, is deserving of the Republican nomination, but if that touted candidate couldn't win the previous primary election, what makes them automatically entitled to the next nomination? Such an attitude disrespects the American electorate's ability to choose a nominee for themselves. The character of the elites and Establishment are called into question when they so often choose to remain anonymous in their criticism of Governor Palin, like when unnamed Romney aides said she "isn't a serious human being" or multiple nameless GOP operatives trashed Governor Palin's supposed unelectability out of fear that her nomination may destroy their power structure in the GOP.
The most visible example of this is none other than Karl Rove, whose political dictionary seems to define gravitas as possession of a XY chromosome and a resume that includes time in a Bush administration. In a recent interview with New York Magazine, Rove criticized Governor Palin's travelogue show, and those close to him stated that Rove was frustrated by the fact that the Tea Party was outside of his ability to control. To which Rove discusses:
The rules of the Establishment no longer apply. It isn't about the next in line or the preferences of the Elite. That is why Rove's preferred candidate and the man Pennuru touts as the compromise between Governor Palin and Governor Romney, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, will likely have little traction in a 2012 election. What Rove calls an " interesting view" is that the message and the messenger do indeed matter. That is why a man like Governor Daniels, who isn't known for his charisma ,who presided over President Bush's bloated budgets and would support a Value Added Tax, will not fly with an electorate looking for both the right message and the right messenger. He says Palin’s people responded to his criticisms by suggesting they’d found a new way to campaign.
“Some of her people have talked to me and said, ‘Look, the old rules don’t apply,’ ” says Rove. “In essence, the candidate is the message. We’ll see. That’s an interesting view, and we’ll see how accurate it is.”
By operating without filters in a flattened media environment, Palin and the tea party have argued that power is now bottom-up, divorced from the top-down organizing structures Rove has functioned within for more than 30 years.
Perhaps an additional reason that Governor Palin does not win the respect of the Elite and Establishment is that you cannot be praised for your "perfectly creased pants" if you often wear a skirt, right David Brooks? The continued line of attack from the Establishment and Elite men in the GOP have come as a result of Governor Palin's genetic makeup. As Stacy wrote about yesterday, Daily Caller editor and Fox News contributor, Tucker Carlson, tweeted a sexist reference to Governor Palin as a MILF (mother I'd like to F**k). Sadly, it even took him two tweets to even get an apology right. The irony of this is that Carlson's site called out Chris Matthews earlier this week for his sexist and derogatory comments. Red State editor and CNN commentator, Erick Erickson joined in the misogyny when he tweeted the following last night:
Yes, Erickson's sense of humor needs to be recalibrated. What is funny about denigrating any woman? What is politically constructive about objectifying the most powerful political voice in America? Maybe my sense of humor needs to be recalibrated, but when I heard @TuckerCarlson's MILFistan comment, I laughed then got out my passport.
Much like Governor Palin's redefinition of President Obama's Win the Future acronym, perhaps a redefinition of MILF is needed--Misogynists (and Elitists) I'd like to Fulminate. What do these lines of attack boil down to? It might very well be best described by one of Governor Palin's political role models, Margaret Thatcher, who once said, " I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding, because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have no political argument left".
Thatcher's words ring true. The Elites and misogynists do not attack Governor Palin on the issues; they attack her personally--her class and her gender. After all, what's there to criticize about the one potential candidate who could best provide the solutions on what appears to be a coming energy crisis? What's there to criticize about a woman who has been prescient on commodity inflation that has resulted because of quantitative easing? The elites and the misogynists cannot criticize Governor Palin on the issues because there's is little to criticize. Governor Palin has always been open to discussion of the issues, but when the elites and misogynists stoop to the level of chauvinistic pig, even with a tint of elitist lipstick, they are still chauvinistic pigs.
