Can Sarah Palin bring Reagan Democrats back to the GOP?

She's a 20-year veteran of elected politics.
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On the first leg of her One Nation tour, Gov. Palin is reaching out to the Northeast, which is, as Christopher Chantrill points out, is a target-rich environment full of the white working class (also known as Blue Collar Democrats, originally known as Reagan Democrats), that has been up for grabs in recent elections. Can Sarah Palin win them over?

Time was that the white working class was the darling of the liberals. But then the liberals soured on them. In the 70s working-class whites were bigoted Archie Bunkers; in the 2000s, "bitter clingers." Liberals decided that all along they had really loved women and minorities, and they became the darlings of the liberals, extolled and boosted in the university, the halls of Congress, in stock photos, and on stage and screen.

Of course, the white working class has only itself to blame. Put not your trust in princes, says the Good Book. Back in the 19th century the working class had built its own authentic social institutions, the labor unions, the fraternal associations, the Methodist and Baptist Churches, from scratch. But then the liberals came calling with flattery and free money. There's a line for that too: The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

When you are living in the Garden of Eden, the darlings of the liberals, life is peachy: good jobs, good wages, benefits, health care, pensions. But when the liberals decide to change you out for a newer model, then it's back to the real world, only now the unions are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party and the fraternal associations have withered away into irrelevance. But for the "pessimistic and alienated" in this fallen world, there is God and guns and Sarah Palin.

You can see why the party professionals don't take Palin seriously. The way people talk, you'd think Sarah Palin was a political newcomer, rather than a 20-year veteran of elected politics.

But there is another, bigger reason why the Republican insiders find it so difficult to take Palin seriously. Their game is political chess, a game of movement, and Palin plays Chinese Go or weiqi, a game of position, where you put down counters and never move them. With Going Rogue, she put down a counter that positioned herself as a "commonsense conservative." With America by Heart she positioned herself as a "commonsense constitutional conservative." Now, with her "One Nation" bus tour, she is mounting a "campaign to educate and energize Americans about our nation's founding principles, in order to promote the Fundamental Restoration of America."

That's the new counter that Sarah Palin is placing on the board as she moves up the Northeast corridor: the "Fundamental Restoration of America." It has quite a ring to it. It is just the line you would want to take if you were running for president against Barack Obama and his czars, his crony green capitalists, his waivers-for-friends ObamaCare, his regulatory blizzard, his jobless recovery, and his 1967-borders foreign policy.

So can Gov. Palin bring Reagan Democrats back to the GOP? If this Obama economy continues to tank, as it shows every indication of doing, yes she can.

- JP

Christopher Chantrill: That Disdain for Palin

She knows how to frame an issue
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Now that some on the left have pledged not to write and talk about Sarah Palin during the entire month of February, we may see the McCarthyite attacks on her subside for a while. Still, opines Christopher Chantrill at American Thinker, Gov. Palin will continue be disdained by the intellectual elite:

The popular, populist candidate of the ordinary working stiff is Sarah Palin, and the educated classes just can't get their wine glasses around the idea of a Sarah Palin as president. Where's the experience, they wonder? Where's the well-rounded education in political philosophy? Where's the record as a successful administrator? Where's the Ivy League degree?

[...]

In her first book, Going Rogue, Palin called herself a "common-sense conservative" and repeated the notion every second sentence as she traveled around the nation on her book tour. Last fall, as she promoted her second book, the leopard had changed its spots -- just a little. Now Palin was a "common-sense constitutional conservative." Who wouldn't prefer that to an ideological rule-by-czar liberal?

It just so happens that Palin has a particular connection with the white working class, a large demographic that is up for grabs in 2012.

In the winter of 2011, President Obama is clearly tacking to the middle; he would be a fool not to. Already, his polls are improving. It will take the best politician, the best in America, to spoil his wind.

If there's a better conservative politician around than Sarah Palin, we'd better know his name by the summer of 2012.

[More]

- JP

Christopher Chantrill on Palin and the Future

Christopher Chantrill, whose forthcoming book Road to the Middle Class "celebrates the self-governing culture of the United States," is also a frequent contributor to American Thinker. In his latest Thinker opinion piece, Chantrill focuses on Sarah Palin and the future:

We know from Palin's book tour that she has a base. You know who they are because you've seen them in line at the book stores. They are the aspiring white working/middle class, the same people that turned out for Reagan a generation ago: "Ray the Principal," "Jose the Hairdresser," "Peggy the Nurse," "Bob the Cop," "Joe the Plumber." Today's Democratic Party, once the party of the little people, has nothing to say to them.

The next question is, can Palin connect with moderates?

Fortunately, there is a simple answer to that question: We don't know. We might have an idea if she were a loyal Republican workhorse. But she isn't. She's a force of nature.

[...]

If you read Sarah Palin's book and listen to her interviews, you'll know that she is hammering away at one simple idea: commonsense conservatism. What does it mean? That will depend. But Palin's record tells us that when it's time to run for election, she knows how to win. When it comes time to master the details, she's done that, like with Alaskan energy policy. When it comes to selling the public on her program with speeches and town meetings, she's been there. When it comes to getting her agenda through the legislature, she's done it.

The complete op-ed by Christopher Chantrill is here.

Quote of the Day (November 6, 2009)

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Christopher Chantrill:

"The thing about a charismatic politician like a Reagan or a Palin is that once nominated, they can talk over the heads of the MSM directly to the American people. And they can demonstrate to the American people that they are not at all the caricature created by Democratic activists and their bribed apologists in the mainstream media."

- JP