A Hot Air reader in New Hampshire took this video of Sarah Palin on the stump in Dover on Wednesday. Want to know why Palin resonates with the base and the middle class? She speaks their language, especially on America and what it means:
We believe, too, in the promise of this country, in the opportunities that we wish for ourselves and for each other, for our sons and for our daughters. We believe America is not the problem. We don’t have to apologize for being Americans!
This is the kind of optimism and pride that Ronald Reagan inspired. That doesn’t make Sarah Palin Ronald Reagan, but Palin has done the best in recapturing that sense of hope and optimism in this general election in either campaign. When Reagan ran in 1980, America was in the middle of a decade-long economic slump which was the worst since the Great Depression, but he didn’t just paint dark pictures of Jimmy Carter’s administration — he talked about the morning in America that was just around the corner when everyone else said that our best days were behind us.
Palin also has the middle-class credibility that none of the other three principals have in this cycle. She didn’t go to Ivy League schools or spend decades in Washington. Until she ran for governor, she was mostly a hockey mom juggling a two-income home with family demands like most other Americans. She has no pretensions to patrician status even while running for VP, and has an authenticity that is unmatched in this campaign, no matter how much Joe Biden talks about Scranton.
The McCain campaign needs to unleash Palin in the final three weeks. She’s a terrific political weapon if they could just allow her to be herself.
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