Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, speaks to supporters during a rally in Henderson, Nev., Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008. (AP Photo/Eric Jamison)
Posted on 10/23/2008 5:17:39 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
TAMPA - Sherrie Candelaria, a PTA president and mother of five from Wesley Chapel, is dead set on voting for Sarah Palin, a former PTA president and mother of five from Alaska.
Palin's a hockey mom; Candelaria, a volleyball mom.
"She even has the same anniversary date," Candelaria said.
The similarities aren't the only reason Candelaria likes the McCain/Palin ticket, but they help.
"You can relate to that type of person," she said. "It's almost like your best friend next door."
But should your best friend next door be president?
It's common for candidates for president to proclaim that they're ordinary people who think just like us, but should extraordinary responsibilities be borne by an ordinary person?
In fact, political experts say, voters demand from presidential candidates something that seems impossible: An uncommon person who talks, acts and assures us that he or she is, in fact, common.
"There are many contradictions in politics," said Texas A&M University political scientist George Edwards, who has long studied and researched the history of the presidency. "This is one of them."
In Palin, America is seeing another in a long line of candidates for the White House who assert the superiority of the ordinary.
"You know what? It's time that normal Joe Six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency," Palin told conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt last month.
Palin said her intent to provide that representation has "ticked off" elitists and Washington insiders who run the government, and don't want to see it "put back on the side of the people, of Joe Six-pack, like me."
However, Edwards noted, understanding ordinary people's problems doesn't necessarily mean being capable of solving them.
"Just because I can feel your pain," he said, "doesn't make me a superb physician."
Obama campaign state director Steve Schale said in a time of crisis, voters will look for more than a Joe Six-pack appeal. "This is a 'fundamentals' election, not a 'who-do-you-want-to-have-a-beer-with' election," he said.
Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist who studies the presidency at the University of Texas, said Americans want unusually capable, intelligent people for the nation's highest office, but they're conflicted about that desire.
"We have kind of an anti-intellectual tradition in American life," and a tradition of populism that usually springs from a sense of economic injustice, Buchanan said. "Voters want some betterness, but wrapped up in a package that makes you seem like ordinary folks."
Candidates "must establish emotional rapport with voters, most of whom are ordinary people," Buchanan said.
The result: Although history is full of candidates claiming to be ordinary, few actually were.
President Bush, for example.
"His early appeal was that he'd be good to have a beer with; he talks sort of like I do," Buchanan said. "But he went to Yale and Harvard and benefitted from a privileged social and economic position at every turn of his life."
Most experts cite Harry Truman as the closest to a truly ordinary guy to make it to the presidency. Even he wasn't entirely ordinary, and he took an almost accidental path to the nation's highest office.
A farmer and haberdashery owner, Truman got involved in local politics after serving in World War I, ultimately reaching the U.S. Senate. However, he didn't start from scratch: He came from a prosperous family and had a strong war record, plus the backing of a powerful political machine.
Many, maybe even Truman, were surprised when he was picked to replace President Franklin Roosevelt's running mate in 1944. That led to Truman's own widely admired presidency.
By the time Roosevelt chose him, Truman had already been a senator and Washington insider for 10 years, and a county administrator for 12 years before that.
One of the most famous political appeals to ordinariness in U.S. history came not in a presidential race but a battle over a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, a job seemingly even more dependent on strong intellectual ability.
In 1970, Democrats said G. Harrold Carswell, a Tallahassee federal judge nominated by President Nixon, was chosen for political reasons and was "mediocre."
The late Sen. Roman Hruska, R-Neb., replied, "Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they?"
"We can't have all Brandeises, Cardozos and Frankfurters," he went on - a reference to three of history's most brilliant justices.
That argument didn't save Carswell's nomination.
Nah, the president should be some dork like Al Gore. Or some sociopath like Bill Clinton. Or maybe some baby-burning female Frankenstein's Monster like Janet Reno. And let's not forget about considering a holier-than-thou loser like Jimmy Carter.
Nah, never the gal next door!
ping
No but it might mean they understand we don't want them to "solve our problems" but just stay the hell out of our business.
“But should your best friend next door be president? “
If I live next door to Sarah Palin, sure!
I am so sick of this attitude in the media that we in the ignorant masses are too stupid to govern ourselves.
Better my best friend next door than a shadowy figure who pals around with terrorists (but lamely says "they're not part of the campaign and won't be in the administration"), attended a "God D@mn America" church for 20 years (but can't remember it), attended Muslim school as a child, went to Pakistan when such travel was forbidden to US citizens, and won't release his birth certificate.
Oh, did I mention he's a socialist?
...and had a Nuremburg-type rally in Germany, and designed his own "Presidential Seal" before the election (Kurtz on the Annenberg Project on Chicago talk radio)?
...who sends his brownshirts to choke off dissent on the public airwaves, and tries to send law enforcement to declare dissent illegal (Missouri Truth Squad)?
"Vote for the Hottie
Not for the Haughty"
Suck on that, Race-Baiters.
Cheers!
The Left always attacks the Right as being stupid and spending money - look at the Reagans (dumb actor, wife buys White House china!) But let a Democrat throw a super expensive party - well, the menu is trumpeted as fitting and they are admired as the wonderful, beautiful people.
The the more logical corollary is "should extraordinary responsibilities be borne by an elitist communist and his idiot gaffe-prone sidekick who has spent far too much of his adult life in Washington DC and during the primaries said the top guy wasn't fit for the job "?
She should read Abe Lincoln's letters to and from boyhood friends.
Is this anything like Billy Beer?
Everybody talks about the common man.
If you think a person is common, tell them to their face.
Make sure you have good dental insurance!
Truman's approval ratings dropped to 23 percent by 1951...
We would have been better off with Billy in office and Jimmy Carter NOT.
No but it might mean they understand we don't want them to "solve our problems" but just stay the hell out of our business.understanding ordinary people's problems doesn't necessarily mean being capable of solving them.
understanding ordinary people's problems beats the snot out of "change" which fixes more things that weren't broke before than it ever does good - for anybody except the manipulator who calls for "change" and his cronies, that is.
Palin is smart and not over indoctrinated.
Obama “change” is chains.
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