Reassessing the GOP's base strategy

The meme late last week was that Sarah Palin's speech was an appeal to the Republican base that wouldn't play well with independent and crossover voters (see: James Fallows, Matthew Yglesias, Mike Murphy, Josh Marshall). In a Democratic year, several of them argued, the GOP's traditional anti-elite rhetoric won't work. That may yet prove to be true, but the apparent size of the Republican bounce suggests otherwise.

The problem with these analyses is that we don't know how effective Republican appeals to resentment against cultural elites will be against a black presidential candidate. Even in an election year, if these critiques take on an explicit or implicit racial tinge (as they often do), it's possible that they will damage Obama more than pundits anticipate. Remember, the fundamentals predict a close race. All it would take is for Obama to underperform by a couple of points and he will probably lose.

Comments

[Jinchi]

We don't resent cultural elites; we think you (if would include yourself among them) are stupid ... or avaricious for accolades, money, and/or power.

Right. Brendan is avaricious for money, power and accolades as opposed to say multimillionaire, Harvard/Yale grad George Bush who thought that anything other than President or Governor of Texas was beneath him, or the "sexually continent" Newt Gingrich (Ph.D, Tulane), now on wife number 3 and currently cutting ads about the sanctity of marriage.

This idiotic idea that those who work hard to get an education are "cultural elites" always seems to be espoused by those with $100 million bank accounts, who landed spots in Ivy League universities on the basis of their pedigree rather than their merit and who work exclusively to transfer wealth from the least in the country to those at the top.

We know you don't resent "cultural elites". You simply have contempt for those who actually work to make their place in the world rather than those who were born there.

[David]

I'm unimpressed with the use of the word "uppity" by some obscure Republican. Nor do I care whether or not Obama called Sarah Palin a pig. Surely there are more important issues than trying to interpret a particular word or phrse so as to find an insult.

[David]

Brendan asserts that "these critiques take on an explicit or implicit racial tinge (as they often do)" and attempts to prove his claim by citing an example. But, a single instance doesn't prove that something occurs often. In fact, Brendan's failure find multiple examples may be an indication that it occurs rarely.