Exactly, and that philosophy inspired one of the greatest landslides we've seen in decades.
The problem with the Republican party is it's done very little to appeal to educated (or even critically thinking) voters. People will say I'm being elitist--which is now the worst possible insult on this site--but Reagan and Gingrich managed to appeal to (among others) these voters without being elitist by effectively articulating compelling, conservative philosophies that anyone could reasonably adhere to.
Since Bush, Republicans have done a terrible job at either communicating or acting on any coherent philosophy, which is why despite Rove's short-term political skill in building a successful coalition, the party's support has collapsed in the past few years. McCain, with his generally populist rhetoric, does nothing to change this. And Palin only further continues the trend.
You can see the same trend in the popularity of conservative media figures like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. They can repeat conservative slogans, but I doubt they could intelligently discuss most issues at a deeper level and explain why the conservative position actually makes more sense, and as a result they do little to convince anyone actually undecided on an issue.
Exactly, which is why these comparisons between Reagan and Palin don’t ring true. Reagan appealed to me. I cast my very first presidential vote for Ronald Reagan. Palin, on the other hand does not appeal to me at all. I remember Reagan, and she’s no Reagan.
Do you need a Ph.D. to describe all the messes that we have accumulated since FDR and the New Deal? We can trace the majority of the country's problems to rat initiatives. How about the economy and the Wall Street meltdown? Can you say the Community Reinvestment Act, Acorn and Obama? What about Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare? Who stopped drilling for energy?
McCain, with his generally populist rhetoric, does nothing to change this. And Palin only further continues the trend.
Those are two different types of populism that appeals to different segments of the electorate. The appeal of Palin is that she counters the cultural marxism afflicting our country since the 1960s while at the same time attracting small 'l' libertarians and a bunch of women just because she's a woman. Give Palin some time. Who says she's not a quick learner?
Hannity's a dufus. I can see that you don't listen to Beck. He has very good guests on and even hen understands what's going on.
Of course, one can never expect anyone but a NYer to be very worldly. We all know that west of the Hudson people's IQ's just don't match up.
It's a common malady among the educated (yes, I'm a card-carrying member; PhD in molecular collision theory) to assume that education = wisdom.
The proper answer to that is that Bill Clinton has a Yale Law Degree and tried to parse the word "is".
Another example is George Bush who has an MBA from Harvard; and of course Paul Krugman who just won a Nobel Prize in economics -- for decades old work, but all the libs will pretend that this validates all his current ramblings, while continuing to ignore Friedman.
Cheers!