Her views are the same views held by her running mate and endorsed by her party. Even Chuck Hagel, beloved by the left, agrees with her on most economic issues. Attack the views, not the person.

Even Phil Gramm and Ralph Reed -- both who hold even more absurd economic and social views than Palin -- have been at different times darlings of the talk show circuit and the media without being publicly mocked as hicks for their regionalism or having their non-Ivy education denigrated (University of Georgia in both cases). Could it be their gender and their race that makes them a little less mockable?

All of the people above, with the exception of Keyes, have been incredibly influential in terms of "ideas" that have influenced government policy over the last quarter of a century -- despite the fact that their ideas have always been, while self-serving and beneficial to some, ultimately destructive for the nation as a whole.

My point in bringing this up is this; Democrats need to ATTACK THE DESTRUCTIVE IDEAS (THAT HAVE BECOME DESTRUCTIVE COMMON WISDOM) AND THE COMPETENCE OF ALL THE PEOPLE WHO HOLD THESE CONSERVATIVE IDEAS AND/OR HAVE USED THEM TO BENEFIT SOME OF THE NATION'S MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE WHILE UNDERMINING THE COUNTRY AT LARGE.

But don't attack Palin personally -- because of how she looks, acts and talks -- that is, on the basis of class (and, to a certain extent, gender).

We are, still, a representative democracy -- not yet a Mandarin/meritocratic society run by "experts." (When you look at some of the people "meritocracy" promotes, like Kristol and Norquist, you have to believe that's a very good thing.) We need to hear, understand and consider the perspective and best interests of as wide a number of people as possible to make good policy and create good governance. We should never forget that while the professor knows a lot the janitor doesn't know, the janitor knows many things the professor doesn't know; the janitor has a perspective and personal and economic interests that, in his role as voter and citizen, the professor has some obligation to understand and contend with. (When you think of professors like Gramm and Gingrich, how can you believe education makes better, smarter citizens?)

The next Democratic president is going to need people making family incomes of less than $150,000 a year with non-elite educations living well outside the New York/DC corridor to actually support his policies. Why do his supporters want to make his job harder by constantly making it clear that their party personally disrespects those people?

I also think that if Obama and Biden, or the democrats as a whole, gave a damn about the wishes of the "great expanses", they would have worked their tails off to get us the hell out of Iraq. That's what they were elected to do. Instead we got a comatose duo of Reid and Pelosi, and a democratic majority that cared nothing for the will of the "great expanses".