Palin, on the other hand, understands how to use reality TV the way the Kennedys understood how to use photography. In “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,’’ produced by Mark Burnett, she’s a bona fide folk hero, in makeup, with flawless hair. She’s fishin’, she’s shootin’, she’s tryin’ to keep boys out of her daughter Willow’s bedroom. She’s draggin’ her family with her; in the opening credits, their first names flash across the screen in cutesy print as they handle firearms and wrestle fish. (Not all relatives are equal; little Trig appears only briefly tonight, waving from the window as his parents go off mountain climbing. And husband Todd is omnipresent but near-silent. Just like a political wife.)…

Lately, Republicans have been far more successful than Democrats at appearing as regular people — folks you can relate to, with flaws you can relate to. Obama was elected as an icon on a pedestal. Now, people are incensed because he doesn’t seem human enough.

The Sarah Palin on TLC is something in between: a woman-of-the-people and a heroic cult figure at once. That doesn’t always make for riveting TV, and it’s not a surefire path to higher office. But Palin will keep, well, tryin’. And when she grins at the camera and says, “you can see Russia from here . . . almost,’’ the joke is on her critics.