Ms. Underestimated

Like the rest of you, I’ve read a lot of stuff about Sarah Palin in the last couple of weeks (annoyingly positive and grotesquely negative), as well as a lot of stuff that tries to account for the reaction she has unleashed (in the commentariat and in Liberal Elite Land—you should see my email!).

Bradley Burston, writing in Ha-aretz,comes closest, I think, to explaining why Palin resonated immediately (as I noted here, a day after she burst onto the scene) [e.a.]:

I get it. I get that millions of Americans have a crying need for someone to stand up and say the things that Sarah Palin has been telling them.

I get that many, many Americans are fed up with big government and shame in patriotism and energy dependence and media condescension. I recognize that there are many on the right who are galvanized by a woman addressing the nation in condemnation of gun control and abortions. It’s clear that many in the heartland and even on the Blue State coasts have been waiting years to hear someone take a take-no-prisoners verbal lash to Beltway waste and liberal political correctness and, by implication, to cultural pluralism and tree hugging and the very mention of the word Washington.

That Palin had struck a nerve with certain Americans who were fed up and couldn’t take it anymore was clear from the reaction at the RNC, where one woman was quoted by the New York Times [e.a.]:

Delegates said they were enthralled by Ms. Palin. “I think she’s great; she’s giving it back to the Democrats for all the sorry things they’ve said about her and about America,” said Anita Bargas, a delegate from Angleton, Tex. “She’s a conservative, and she has a great sense of humor.”

So there was that. But there’s something else in the Amazing Mrs. Palin (other than shades of The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard, a delectable British TV film that I suggest you rent and watch***), and a piece in the Rocky Mountain News nails it:

It’s class as much as gender. When you hear women say she’s just like them, they’re talking about someone who’s gone through what they’ve gone through - and made it. They don’t think Palin is average. They think she’s talented - and talented enough to start where they did and make it to the top, even if she had to go to five colleges to get there. [e.a.]

Yep—just like Mrs. Pritchard—and she had problems at home, too:

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*** Here’s what I wrote in October 2007 about The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard:

The other day, I was watching a silly but diverting British series, The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard, which puts a sensible woman who’s fed up with politicians’ incompetence into 10 Downing Street to succeed Tony Blair. (Yes. I did say it was silly, didn’t I?)

The screenwriter is not at all sympathetic to Blair or to the war in Iraq, but she is sensible. She shows, for example, just how many decisions, large and small, a political leader must make every day. It occurred to me that if only more people would watch this show, they would have a glimmer of understanding beyond their pet theories about BushHitler and the Vulcans.

But when people want to judge, to condemn, to castigate, and to punish, no amount of understanding will stop them. Their fury has a life of its own.

So it goes.