When I started this blog, I lived in a small town in the Colorado Rockies—and when I say “small,” I mean it; to give you an idea, there are more students in my oldest daughter’s new elementary school than there are people living in Grand Lake. (Full-time, anyway.) If you’ve never lived in a small town in the mountains, you need to understand that it’s a different world up there. You might have the idea that mountain towns are full of colorful characters, and it’s true; they also tend to be fiercely independent, even more fiercely stubborn, and not always so good at compromising and playing nice with others. As I’ve written before, the downside of that is that you tend to get communities that range from mildly dysfunctional to complete trainwreck towns like Leadville was (and maybe still is, for all I know).I’m not just going on my own experience in saying this, either; during my five years up there, I compared notes fairly frequently with other mountain pastors, because we were all dealing with similar issues that our flatlander colleagues just didn’t understand. All our communities were different, to be sure, but we shared common root issues and struggles. Our town made the headlines twice during my five years there: once when one of our residents sought redress for his grievances against the county’s commercial hub in the cockpit of the 60-ton Komatsu D355 bulldozer that he’d turned into a 75-ton tank, and once when our church’s oldest and most-beloved member died of an unprovoked attack by a rogue bull moose, something which really isn’t normal moose behavior. None of my colleagues had anything quite that out of the ordinary happen, but they all had some pretty strange stories of their own; that’s just how it is in the mountains. Or as my organist from Colorado would say, that’s life in a tomato can.All of this is the reason why I found myself starting to write in an e-mail yesterday, “If there’s a Patrick Henry left in this country, he lives somewhere in the Rockies”; but as I wrote that, I suddenly remembered how many of our most characteristic people—the sort of folks who were still climbing fourteeners in their eighties and musing that when they died, they’d have their bodies autoclaved and set out to fertilize the roses—spent significant time in Alaska every year, and/or had lived there in the past and loved it. It occurred to me that outside of Anchorage and Juneau, the spirit of our little mountain towns, which is the spirit of the old frontier folks who just had to get out from under the conformity of society, is also very much alive and well in Alaska. (Maybe even in Anchorage and Juneau to some degree.)That having occurred to me, I suddenly realized that that said something very important about Gov. Palin. Her emergence was a complete shock to most of the Washington elite—of both parties, which is why she took some heavy hits from many who should have had her back—but it shouldn’t have been; the fact that it was says a lot more about them than it does about her. I don’t say that we should have expected someone as purely gifted as Sarah Palin to appear on the scene, because she’s a once-in-a-generation political talent (yes, I think she’s a level beyond Barack Obama in that respect, for all his evident gifts as a campaigner), but in a more general way, we really should have seen her coming. In particular, the very elites who were so scandalized by her arrival on the landscape should have seen her coming, if they were actually doing their jobs.Why? Well, what is the Republican base looking for? Another Reagan—and by that I don’t just mean a “real conservative.” Newt Gingrich was more conservative than Reagan, and I don’t believe we’re looking for another Newt (or even the return of the first one, though many folks would accept that in a pinch). No, the base is looking for a common-sense, common-folks, common-touch conservative, someone who’s conservative not merely pragmatically or even philosophically but out of an honest respect for and empathy with the “ordinary barbarians” of this nation; we’re looking for someone who understands why Russell Kirk, the great philosopher of American conservatism, lived his entire adult life not in one of the media or academic centers of this country, but in rural Mecosta County, Michigan (the next county south of where my in-laws live)—and who understands that that fact has everything to do with his conservatism. We’re looking for someone whose conservative principles are anchored in the bedrock of this nation, and who understands our conservatism not merely as an intellectual exercise, but out of shared life experience and a common worldview.That, I think, is why George W. Bush won the GOP nomination in 2000, because he projected that—and indeed, he has many of those qualities; he just wasn’t all that conservative, and so he disappointed many. For all the Texas in him, he still had too much of Harvard and D.C. in him, too, and so was too prone to play by the rules of the political elite. It’s telling that the great success of his second term (the surge) came from standing up, not to the mandarins of his own party—some of them, yes, but they were balanced somewhat by John McCain, who’d been arguing for the surge for years—but to the senior leaders of the U.S. military, whom he could approach on very different terms. He could tell the Joint Chiefs to shut up and soldier; he doesn’t seem to have had it in him to do so to the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader, and the White House correspondents, and in that lay much of the malformation of his presidency.The problem is that the qualities the GOP base is seeking aren’t qualities which are rewarded by the political process in most places; in most of this country, to achieve the kind of prominence and to compile the kind of record that are necessary to justify a run for the White House, it’s necessary to compromise those qualities. To get to Washington, you must increasingly become like Washington—that’s just how the political process works across most of this country.The exception to that—the only great exception I can think of—is the remaining frontier communities in the American West; and of those, it may well be that the only one that’s really large enough for anyone to rise to political prominence without extensive exposure to the elite political culture in America is Alaska. I don’t hold our mountain communities up as any sort of ideal—I know well from experience that they’re no Shangri-La—and I’m not going to try to do so for Alaska, either; but if anyone in this society was ever going to rise to political prominence as a true champion of conservative ideals, of the spirit of us “ordinary barbarians,” without being co-opted and corrupted by the spirit and outlook of the political elite, it was going to have to be from someplace like Alaska. We aren’t going to get another Reagan from Massachusetts, or Minnesota, or Arkansas, or Florida; from Alaska, we have a chance. The fact that few in the elite would be likely to take such a person seriously is actually part of the point, since they didn’t take Reagan seriously either; the revolt against elite opinion (which is not, mind you, the same thing as populism, for all that many in the MSM confuse the two) is part of what the base wants, and someone willing to lead it and stick to it is one of the qualifications.All of which is to say, we might not have predicted specifically the remarkable and gifted woman who is governor of Alaska, or that she would arrive on the scene exactly when she did (though as bizarre as the 2008 presidential election was, when would have been a likelier time?), but we should have expected someone to come out of Alaska, and probably fairly soon. The “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” sort of incredulous reaction that we got from so many in the punditocracy was not only unjustified, it was a clear sign of their myopia, that they’re so burrowed in to being insiders that they’re largely incapable of looking out the window to see what’s going on outside. The GOP base wants another Reagan, and won’t be truly happy until it has one; and where else could such a figure come from?Update: Welcome to all of you coming over from C4P and HillBuzz—it’s good to have you drop by. The moose stew should be ready in a bit. If you want to check out a few more of my posts on Gov. Palin, the links post is here.
This is the best read on the explosive potential that I have seen anywhere on the net. You have nailed the reasons that she is an attractive candidate to so many people outside of Washington.
I don’t know if you’ve ever spent any time in the Appallaichian region. But the same spirit that you describe in the Rockies and Alaska is alive and well here. Don’t underestimate Gov. Palin’s appeal to Democrats in these regions, as well as Republicans. I think people everywhere are sick of being talked down to by the elite while they are robbing us blind. We are hungry for a leader who is “one of us”. I think the “Palin Democrats” would at least equal the “Reagan Democrats” in numbers and enthusiasm.
Thanks for the good words. No, I’ve never had the opportunity to spend time in Appalachia (though I have a cousin in the Shenandoah that I’ve wanted to visit for years), but I can well believe that’s true; I think you’re right about Palin Democrats, especially after a president like Obama who is culturally most definitely not in that mold.
I thank you for your comment, which I truly appreciate. What’s your name, btw?
Forget, please, “conservatism.” It has been, operationally, de facto, Godless and therefore irrelevant. Secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God both are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson’s Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:
“[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth.”
Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
PS – And “Mr. Worldly Wiseman” Rush Limbaugh never made a bigger ass of himself than at CPAC where he told that blasphemous “joke” about himself and God.
Forget, please, “conservatism.” It has been, operationally, de facto, Godless and therefore irrelevant.
As a broad-based judgment, I don’t think that conforms to the facts; and while I respect Dabney as a fellow Reformed theologian, I don’t think his analysis of a political phenomenon of his own time is really all that applicable to our own.
As for Limbaugh, he’s a complete non sequitur in this conversation.
Sorry Mr. Harrison. I posted as Anonymous because I don’t have a Google account. LOL. I’m known around the conservative side of the blogosphere as Palin Democrat. And I am speaking from anecdotal experience when I predict that the Palin Democrats will catch the Beltway elites by surprise. I come from a long line of yellow-dog Democrats, and my family is heavily involved in local politics. But almost everyone in my family between the ages of 40 and 80 voted Republican last year. Not because of John McCain, but due to the presence of Sarah Palin on the ticket.
She is a very attractive candidate to people with an independant spirit, regardless of party, for many of the reasons that you so eloquently spoke of. We are hungry for a leader who is one of us, and who can truly represent us. We are tired of being looked down on and sneered at by the current political class.
As my screen name implies, I wouldn’t necessarily vote for a garden variety Republican. But I would not only vote for Sarah Palin, I would work hard for her campaign, and support her financially. I donated to SarahPAC the day it came online, and I will be phonebanking when/if she runs for re-election. Many other Democrats are attracted to Sarah Palin because of the qualities that you mentioned. The boys at Hillbuzz (http://www.hillbuzz.com) are firmly in her camp, as are many of the other PUMA sights that sprung up because of rank-and-file Democrats disgust with their former party.
Ahh, OK, I think I recognize you–you post over at HillBuzz as georgiapeach, right? (Blogger does let you choose name/URL and just type in a handle, but a lot of folks miss that.) No need for apologies, I just like to know with whom I’m talking. 🙂
I appreciate what you have to say; it’s always pleasant to get evidence that one’s experience is at least somewhat representative. If Gov. Palin runs for the White House in 2012, it could be a very interesting race–barring this administration doing so badly as to provoke a primary challenge, I’m betting we’ll see Democrats cross over in droves to affect the GOP nomination. Many, I’m confident, will be Palin Democrats like you; others, I suspect, will have an ABP agenda and will vote for whoever else has the best chance to beat her. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Thanks again for your comments; I hope you keep dropping by.
Dear Mr. Harrison,
Bookmarked.
I regard Mr. Kirk as one the seminal thinkers of the 20th century. His Ten Principles is the most cogent, most succinct exposition of a philosophy that I have ever encountered.
I strongly disagree with Mr. Lofton when he characterizes conservatism as Godless. He apparently believes that it exists outside of Christianity and is somehow inimical to it.
As I am sure you know our founding fathers; the men who wrote The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and The Federalist Papers; were for the most part Deists. That they believed in a natural law that is totally congruent to Christianity, particularly with the doctrine of free will, should gratify him.
Conservatism, whose true foundations are The Declaration and The Constitution, is a recipe for a temporal order that “does unto others..” and leaves the details of the spiritual to people like Mr. Lofton. They did guarantee him that right in The First Amendment. Though not an exclusive.
Regards,
Roy
p.s., I lived in Show Low, Arizona for a while. Your description of a small mountain town is spot on.
I enjoyed reading your blog
Thanks to both of you. Roy, I actually would disagree that the Founders were “for the most part Deists”–some were, certainly, but on the whole, they skewed rather more orthodox than that. In general, though, I agree with your description of conservatism; but then, you’ve lived in the mountains, too. 🙂
Rob,
I stand corrected. Did some research.
However Jefferson and Franklin were avowed Deists and some of those listed as “Protestant, denomination unknown” were social Protestants but philosophical Deists.
They did, however, create a secular Republic with but one reference to “his Creator” in the Declaration. I sought mainly to counter Mr. Lofton’s contention that Christianity was essential to proper governance.
Roy
True on both, and point noted, certainly. I believe it was Luther who said he’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish saint . . .
Quite astute Mr. Harrison. I was georgiapeach around certain quarters of the blogosphere before I knew who Sarah Palin was, and it had totally slipped my mind that I had a google account with that moniker. I prefer PalinDemocrat these days, because my political identity has undergone a permanent change. You are quite right about the left wing crossing over to influence Republican primaries (although that worked both ways last year, and resulted in Barack Obama getting close enough to steal the Democrat nomination). If Republicans do the smart thing and change to closed primaries, I will be changing my voter registration to vote for the candidate that I feel has the best chance of ousting Barack Obama (hopefully Sarah Palin).
I have bookmarked your page, and look forward to exploring it further when the spring showers keep me indoors. I’ve spotted several links on your main page that look like interesting reading.
I’m glad to hear it, and look forward to whatever comments you may have. You are of course correct that any Democratic meddling in GOP primaries in 2012 will be nothing more than turnabout–though on the whole, I think more of us on the Republican side crossed over to vote for Hillary. (Some of that was political mischief-making–as I say, whatever the GOP gets back will be fair play–but a lot of us did so because we’d come to respect Sen. Clinton and thought she’d make a much better president than Sen. Obama. So far, I haven’t seen anything to change my mind on that.) There’s no doubt in my mind that Gov. Palin will have the best shot in the general election if she runs; the hard part will be overcoming the really odd coalition that I expect to see develop in the primaries. Even so, I think everyone should be learning by now that this is not a woman to bet against . . . 🙂
I agree with your assessment of the GOP participation in the Democrat primary. I think even Rush Limbaugh encouraged it as mischief-making early, and then in an earnest effort to defeat Obama later in the primaries.
Believe it or not, at the beginning of the primaries, I was pretty much anybody-but-Hillary. But I have to admit that my respect for her grew as the campaign went on. I admire toughness in anybody (theres that mountain thing again), and both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have that in spades. I also respected the fact that they both refused to be drawn into the catfight that the Obama campaign and the media wanted.
Interesting that you say that; though I agree that she earned a lot of respect over the course of the campaign from a lot of folks who hadn’t thought much of her before (except, of course, for those who were blinded by that light Barack Obama talked about). Rush was even one of those, at least to a degree; I think it wasn’t until Texas and Ohio that he started urging Republicans to cross over (partly since in the early going, the GOP nod was very much up for grabs), and while that was partly to prolong the Democratic contest, I do think that he too had the clear sense at that point that Sen. Clinton would make a better president than Sen. Obama.
It’s really rather surprising; on the GOP side, those who weren’t tough were weeded out quite early (yes, that means you, Gov. Romney, and you, Sen. Thompson). John McCain is tough as nails, Sarah Palin is tough as old rawhide, and Hillary Clinton (much to my surprise, I’ll admit) showed herself as tenacious as a bulldog with its jaws locked. Yet the only major candidate in the race who showed no toughness whatsoever is the one who actually won it. That still catches me when I think about it.