Do we want a politician who is like us?

One of the positives that those who like Sarah Palin have been touting is that she is like an average American. We know people like this and can imagine talking to her. She seems to have lived experiences that the common American can relate to. Here is one writer, Aaron Goldstein, who crystallizes this argument.

I am not suggesting they necessarily agree with all her policy positions or point of view. What I am suggesting is the people are with Sarah Palin because they know Sarah Palin. We can see Sarah Palin as our mother, daughter, granddaughter, sister or sister’s friend (perhaps even her really hot friend.) We can see Sarah Palin as someone we would like to introduce to our friends and bring home to meet our parents. We can see Sarah Palin running our local diners, hardware stores, the neighborhood bank and our union shop floors. We can see Sarah Palin as a down to earth person who is slightly more ambitious and hard working than the rest of us and she knows it. But she knows that doesn’t make her better than you and you know it too.

Jim Geraghty listened to her interview on Hugh Hewitt and had this comment.

The last couple answers were a lot like talking to a neighbor - issues like the financial crisis, the culture of life, and the war in Iraq in strikingly personal, human terms. This is the Sarah Palin who had gotten conservatives fired up like little else a month ago.

There is a whole "I am Sarah Palin" movement and you can even buy the T Shirt.

And she made that argument explicitly herself when she was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt.

HH: Governor, your candidacy has ignited extreme hostility, even some hatred on the left and in some parts of the media. Are you surprised? And what do you attribute this reaction to?

SP: Oh, I think they’re just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying you know what? It’s time that normal Joe six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think that that’s kind of taken some people off guard, and they’re out of sorts, and they’re ticked off about it, but it’s motivation for John McCain and I to work that much harder to make sure that our ticket is victorious, and we put government back on the side of the people of Joe six-pack like me, and we start doing those things that are expected of our government, and we get rid of corruption, and we commit to the reform that is not only desired, but is deserved by Americans.

I just wonder how many Americans are really looking for an elected leader who is just like them. Admittedly, there is a distinct trend in American history of candidates who can sell themselves as a man of the people winning election going back to Andrew Jackson. There was the 1840 log cabin campaign where William Henry Harrison who came from an established Virginia family and had been born on a plantation being sold as a guy who lived in a log cabin and liked drinking hard cider. Abraham Lincoln's modest background became a selling point in his 1860 victory. His supporters paraded around with the supposed rails that Lincoln had split as a youth.

On the other hand, we've also elected patricians like the two Roosevelts and the Bushes. Of course, nowadays, being rich seems to be a drawback and George H.W. Bush tried to relate to the ordinary voter by talking about how he liked pork rinds.

One poll question that has always had great predicative value in predicting winners is asking which candidate people would rather have a beer with or share a pizza with. This quest supposedly indicates that people want to elect someone they'd like to hang out with, someone like them. And Sarah Palin seems to be that person for many people.

But I just don't know that that is enough. We're not electing someone for our coffee klatch, but someone who will have a hand in leading this nation. I wasn't troubled by her not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is, but her appearances in the Katie Couric interviews have been troubling to me because it seems clear that she hasn't thought much about a whole raft of questions and issues. People have wondered how this woman could rise so quickly in politics while raising her family, helping her husband with his commercial fishing business, and dealing with her husband's work schedule when he'd be gone every other week. Well, one thing that this busy life meant is that she didn't have time for reading much about issues that she didn't encounter in her political life in Alaska. So she hasn't been reading about questions before the Supreme Court or debates over foreign policy. That may well be just fine. She is reportedly a quick study and an intelligent woman and could well learn about these questions if she is elected vice president. She's supposedly cramming with her notecards and briefing books to get up to speed for her debate. But there is no way that she can really think deeply about issues in this environment. And so we're left with hoping that she has the right instincts. That is a big if.

Perhaps enough Americans are filled with the desire to see someone like them in public office. It's not a desire that I've ever had - I'm more concerned about those instincts and the moral compass that guides a leader to know where she wants to go and which policies are in alignment with those beliefs and which ones aren't. So, I'm left unmoved by the argument that we should support a candidate because she is like someone I might like hanging out with. I don't think that someone has to be Joe Six Pack in order to have a good sense of which policies would be best for the Six Pack family.