Palin Power Update!

She drew 20,000 to a rally in Noblesville, Indiana tonight.

I saw Peggy Noonan at a book signing/book tour in Washington DC once. I think I was joined by a couple dozen people.

Just sayin'.

Update: Pics and an account of the rally from a volunteer and blogger.

Steyn Nails It So Hard He Splits the Beam [ace]: So blatantly, obviously correct it's hard to imagine why anyone didn't say it before.

It's times like this I wish I had a mutation which inflicted me with 2d4 additional testicles. Just to dip all the more.

On this business of "elite cocoons" and "conservative cocoons":

One of the things I love about America (speaking as a foreigner) is how decentralized it is. Pace "New York, New York", you don't have to make it there, you can make it anywhere. Yet, in contrast to other industries, our chattering classes are uniquely concentrated in Ross Douthat's DC/NY corridor. Isn't this a little odd? And doesn't it pose particular problems for Republicans? Conservative elites live in liberal jurisdictions - and, way out back in the "conservative cocoon", it gives them the whiff of absentee landlords, who enrich themselves on the strength of various holdings in ramshackle colonies but have no desire to spend much time there. Whatever one feels about what Ross Douthat calls the "conservative cocoon", it elects conservative mayors, conservative school boards, conservative road agents, conservative state reps, and conservative governors: it's the only place to go to experience conservatism as applied in practice. On the other hand, Mr Douthat's afforementioned corridor will once in a while elect a Michael Bloomberg or a Christie Whitman, and that it's: conservatism remains strictly a theoretical proposition.

That's why the metropolitan sneers about the size of Wasilla were extremely ill-advised, and not just because of the implication that the mayors of, say, New Orleans, San Francisco or Detroit are therefore more qualified to be in the White House. If it weren't for small towns, suburbs and rural districts, there would be no conservative government at all. With a few exceptions (such as Vermont), "blue states" mostly turn out to be red states with a couple of big blue cities (Pennsylvania, for example, or even California). Almost by definition, an effective conservative executive - the kind you might want in the White House - can only come from flyover country.

So, when a conservative pundit mocks Wasilla, he's mocking conservatism as it's actually lived, as opposed to conservatism as a theoretical fantasy playground for the purposes of cocktail-party banter.

More at the link.

I guess there are two notable exceptions to this rule, and either of them could have been an effective VP: Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. However, both were (sadly) rejected by the GOP and the impact they might have had on the race is questionable.

I know that pondering actual political strategies for winning elections might strike the "elite" blogger (ahem) Ross Douthat as crude, and he'd far prefer a "conservativism of the mind" that exists wholly in cocktail chatter and Georgetown panel discussions.

Perhaps that's the way "the elites" would prefer conservative government-- abstract, pure, and untainted by real-world practice.

Not sure if they think the world is too dangerous for conservatism, or if conservatism is too dangerous for the world. Either way, they're not eager to see the two mixing.

The "Elites" Who Aren't Really Elite [ace]: I grew annoyed at people of very minor accomplishment terming themselves "elite" when actually all they mean is "adherents of the tastes and preferences of the NY/DC urban aristocracy" last night.

They call themselves "elites." By and large they're not "elites." They're merely establishment.

There is, I assure you, a difference.

Just because you like the Wilt Stilman movie Metropolitan, and have joined or are aspiring to join the "Urban Haute Bourgeoisie," doesn't really make you elite.

Besides, Metropolitan is overrated. A far better film, and a far more conservative film, is Barcelona.

posted by Jack M. at 12:22 AM

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