This idea that she is a “celebrity” gets me, too. Like John F. Kennedy and Jackie were not celebrities? Bill Clinton was the ultimate celebrity!
What really gets people is that she and Todd possess a kind of working-class charisma that is brand new in American politics. It is not driven by fabulously expensive college educations, scholarships to Oxford, or a life of sinecures - as Hilliary Clinton has had. This seems to drive a lot of people crazy.
I don't think it's totally new, so much as that it's *back*, at a time when everyone can see it because of national and international media coverage, as well as all the non-"news" exposure.
Charles Murray's new book, "Coming Apart," documents in numbing detail the isolation of the socioeconomic elites from not just the poor but everyone we'd call "regular people." They don't know people like the Palins, their parents didn't associate with "workers," and they just can't wrap their minds around Sarah's popularity and influence. "Who voted for her? Who cares about her endorsement? Nobody WE know!"