He was part of the Hollywood crowd which is almost tantamount to the same thing. He was good friends with people like Walter Annenberg, George Will, Bill Buckley and others who were very much part of the establishment. EVen in CA he was friends with Unruh and others and was accepted as part of the establishment. He was friends with Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Liz Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and just about every other major star of that era. Imagine a Republican candidate who was close, personal friends with Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington and Will Smith and that’d give you some idea.
He was two term governor of the most populous state in the country.
While I’d agree he wasn’t as much a part as say Cheney, the Bushes, Dole, McCain, etc... he was definitely there as part of a comfort level.
I meant it more in that regard. Comfort level with him and Nancy as people and their background. People disagreed with his politics, but they felt comfortable with him and Nancy as people, they were of their class(if not above it), part of Hollywood glamour, etc...
From the beginning, it was very apparent, to me at least, that the NY/DC media and political establishment looked down on both Gov Palin and her husband as unfit to share their space, as beneath them and as deserving of contempt. I could be wrong but I never detected that personal animosity towards President Reagan and Nancy.
That’s what I was trying to get at. Gov Palin was seen as very threatening because she is so far from what they represent and a win by her would be such a repudiation of everything they believe in and stand for.
There was defnitely an extra edge to the media assault on her and it went way beyond being issue/policy based because on issues she was pretty much the same as McCain who they loved(and would have been perfectly ok with if he had won sans Palin).
I’m just contending that it was more because they saw her as hick from the sticks who didn’t belong in their rarified air in Georgetown and Kalorama and Dupont Circle and Embassy Row than because she momentarily lapsed when asked if she reads The Economist or Time, or because she couldn’t name drop Kelo v New London at a moment’s notice.
I think part of reason Reagan had a better relationship with the NYC/DC media was because they turned on Carter.
A late senior NBC correspondent told several friends of mine that he (and others in the media) supported Reagan over Carter. It was clear the media was in the tank for Obama this year.
Over time I think there was some personal animosity towards the Reagans-more so to Nancy I think-but nothing compared to the animosity directed to Palin (you and I are in complete agreemen on that).
“”That’s what I was trying to get at. Gov Palin was seen as very threatening because she is so far from what they represent and a win by her would be such a repudiation of everything they believe in and stand for.”
If Todd Palin were a man of wealth and power instead of a blue collar man with nothing but his outdoor job and wages, I think that it would have been much easier for elitists of the left and right to accept her on the stage (and her bumping them off of it).
This thing about all of this actually being accomplished by her, with out even a parental inheritance or famous name to open doors for her seems to be causing a real disturbance among people that like a certain social order.
She is a throw back to a younger, more volatile, less structured America, and she does all of this in a skirt and high heels, while handling a brood of five kids and a very satisfied looking, verile husband.