This whole "elitist" thing is one big straw man.
I feel it fundamentally misrepresents the major issue at hand.
People just want a candidate with a well documented strict constructionist history. There are dozens of such candidates. This was not one of them. When campaigning, Bush promised to nominate such a justice, so many of his supporters rightly feel disappointed, even wronged, by him not doing so.
"People just want a candidate with a well documented strict constructionist history"
I haven't made up my mind, but I wonder, would this even be a question if she went to lawschool at Harvard, for instance?