Sarah Palin, the User-Generated Candidate

YouTube + Yahoo! Answers + Twitter + Unremitting Blogging = Sarah Palin.

Last night, we saw the debut of a politician who was made possible by the last 5 years of the Internet. Those in the game call it Web 2.0, and it carries in its wake many variants of linguistic triumphalism: the wisdom of crowds, the democratization of media, crowd-sourcing, and citizen journalism. Web 2.0 is also a hockey mom whose ordinariness is instantly validating.

This apotheosis of average has been excoriated in books like The Cult of the Amateur and lauded in paeans like Here Comes Everyone. Say what you will, its impact is profound, just as its essence runs deep. There's absolutely nothing new, and everything old about the very American religion that everyone's opinion is as good as anyone's, that expertise is lived and not earned by study, that training is overrated, that talent is as ubiquitous and evenly distributed as oxygen, that a physician with 15 years of training likely knows no more (and perhaps less) about ear infections than some random mom in an iVillage chat room.

The promise of sagacity hiding in the humble corners of the continent, along with a latent and corresponding anti-intellectualism, are American memes that arch back to Andrew Jackson, Mark Twain, and to those Jimmy Stewart movies on TCM.

What is new, though, are two ways in which the Internet has amped up this belief structure.

First, the web removes all the friction from disseminating your bone-headed opinions. And it creates instant gratification. We write, we post, we see our wisdom on the Internet immediately - and so does all the world. It's Kant 2.0. Cogito ergo sum becomes cogito ergo send.

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The second shift is that marketers are cannily playing to our over-heated self-esteem, stroking our Capra-fattened egos. They are building their own brands by celebrating yours.

"You're as clever and wise as our overpaid ad guys," they whisper. "Come up with your own Superbowl spot."

"Your political opinion means to us as much as Olbermann and Matthews, combined", they coo. "Please tell us what you think." In fact, put the phrase "Tell us what you think" into Ask.com and there are over 6 million hits. Brands today define themselves by "empowering" consumers, stoking and stroking their egos.

All of which brings us back to Sarah Palin. The Republicans, perhaps the savviest marketers of them all, know how to tap into the resentment at smarty-pants, self-appointed urban authorities, and how to channel our natural gusher of sentiment for the ordinary person plucked from banality who turns out to be wiser than the wise.

Sarah Palin is the living, shooting, carcass-gutting example of this narrative. She recalled last night that "I was just your average hockey mom and signed up for the PTA." She mocked "...all the experts in Washington {who} counted out our nominee" and punched their "Usual certitude..." in the nose. She drives to work, she fired the governor's private chef (and with that lost the entire private chefs' vote, sending them thumping into the Obama camp, where those arugula-arranging elitists belong), and she did with the state plane what all moms do when they've got something to unload: she put it on eBay.

She also pre-empted any value judgment about her daughter by transforming an unwanted pregnancy into an occasion for bonding. Was Mark Salter channeling Tolstoy -- "Happy families are all alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"? -- when he wrote "You know, from the inside, no family ever seems typical, and that's how it is with us. Our family has the same ups and downs as any other, the same challenges and the same joys."

There are two master narratives in American life: destiny and serendipity. Destiny - a framework that holds the notion "Manifest Destiny" - works the seam of American exceptionalism. It is part and parcel of the Obama brand, that in some ineffable way he was marked for this role. His two autobiographies, (or "memoirs" as Sarah dismissed them last night) are part of that mythology. In a completely different way, as a son and grandson of admirals -- John McCain's life is a destiny narrative as well.

Sarah Palin's narrative is one of serendipity, and she played that to the hilt yesterday, even referencing perhaps the 20th century's most successful of accidental politicians, Harry Truman. What she did in St. Paul night was weave both these narratives together, taking her sheer unremarkableness - shared by those "who do some of the hardest work in America, who grow our food, and run our factories, and fight our wars" - and fusing it to the narrative of America's destiny. Leave it to the Republicans to find a loom (probably made in China) that weaves these two threads together.

What Governor Palin also did was confirm that you can be plucked from obscurity, defy the experts, and beat the pros at their own game. She is the Poster Gal of user-generated content, and she makes us feel very, very good about our own undiscovered gifts and (just temporary) invisibility.

Read more analysis from HuffPost bloggers on Sarah Palin

Comments

[pithy]

The one thing missing in the Palin story is the fact that she is "NEWS." After an 18-month-old campaign, reporters and pundits are weeping at their desks, having to write the same basic things over and over.

The "maverick" story - the "food stamp mom" story, the "historic" story - they're even sick of writing and talking about themselves.

Palin, my friends, is NEWS. The reporters finally have a chance to find some new kernel of something to pound their keyboards over. She's young, hot, brave, feisty, fresh, - all words they haven't typed in months.

What has to happen now is Obama has to make some NEWS. He has been slow, methodical and extremely successful so far - but the finish line is at hand, and if he wants to win, he has to glug down some Red Bull and SPRINT, creating interesting, funny, memorable NEWS every single day..

[BarakOhYoMama]

She is hot, isn't she!!

[FdeBear]

Adam Hanft implies that we should be inspired by Palin and hit the cultural "lotto". She does not inspire me. She makes me sick: she's shallow, deceitful, opportunistic, lacks integrity and has a whole lot of babies. I'm tired of hearing all this inflated rhetoric about her"accomplishments" and competencies. Her speech was no more but a mass diss session. I've heard better valedictory addresses at high school graduations. When we finally get her behind before the press (if these dopes don't softball her) if people still decide that is one of our great American leaders - I will space on this country because I'm tired of putting up with fools.

[2stupid4words]

The republican vp candidate has reached star status without accomplishing anything. The comparison would be with the McCain ad posting Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. She is the new face on the covers of mags and newspapers without substance. She emotes with best of the theatricals or pretenders. After parading her family before the American public, she has indeed reminded me that if I smile pretty and let others craft my words I should reach celebrity status.

[KarenJW]

VP pick Sarah Palin publicly said, "Sambo beat the bitch!", when Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination.

"The comment says as much about McCain as it does about Palin, and it says a lot of things about Americans who overlook such statements (as well as her record) and vote anyway for McCain."

http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/09/05/alaskans-speak-in-a-frightened-whisper-palin-is-%E2%80%9Cracist-sexist-vindictive-and-mean%E2%80%9D

[sleek]

Why won't Palin talk to the media? What is she hiding?

[reedmaker]

She has no knowledge of anything relevant to running the executive branch of the U.S. government, and she is completely unqualified to be our representative oversees. If interviewers started asking questions like "who is the president of Russia" or "what foreign policy position to you favor in Pakistan now that Bhutto is in power," her response would be a blank stare. She is nothing but an empty skirt, and I say that as a feminist who would be thrilled to see a qualified woman in the Whitehouse.

Republicans want their women pretty and dumb. That is the Palin story. Period.

[Nim]

I think we all know the answer to that.

"You can't strike out if you don't come to the plate."

[lordmi]

Barking Nothingness Pit Bull.
Who cares?

[boophus]

Why bother to get an education? Why bother to try to keep up on current events? Why not have surgery done by a 12 year old? Why try to treat other humans well (after all there are so many )? Why not just use em, confuse em and toss em? Why bother to even learn to read, you know-it-all as an infant. What the heck is wrong with us? When did we become a nation that has absolutely no respect for anyone else or for our selves

So important to have everyone exactly like you or under your control. So important to pile up possessions, power and accolades that no one should get in your way or even exist if they bug you or make you feel like they are smarter or more skilled or more talented. Wow, why do these types even send their children to school? They think education has no value and knowledge is useless compared to hormones & body functions. For pete sake there was a nit wit who was going to vote for M& P just because P is a mom. Gee whiz that means all the moms in US are qualified to run the most powerful nation in world, Then there is the advantage that she is a soccer mom and we know the lengths some of them have gone to.
I am so tired of this woman.

[SmallTownHawkeye]

Maybe someone needs to remind Sarah Palin that Jesus Christ was a community organizer, and Pontius Pilate was a governor.

[Gould123]

Introducing Mr. Mrs Sarah Palin Bush Mccain channey to the ticket! Sense we repubs vote against womens right, and equal pay for Mrs Palin, She will just have to be our pretty face and take her place as the GOP puppet!

[LeawoodKansas]

Maybe Palin would be willing to serve as VP for 80% of what the men who held the office prior to her made.

[SusaninIN]

I can't believe that some women are letting themselves be seduced by the repubs VP pick. Yes having a woman in the white house sounds good, but if you end up with less choices in life, then you just got screwed AGAIN! This election is not about the women who rise to the top, it's about the millions of women struggling in this country. We want better jobs, equal pay, better health care and control of our bodies and lives. If we end up losing our rights, it doesn't matter whether we were screwed by men or by another woman. We still lose in the end.

[patianneb]

Love the article .... but nothing dies quicker on the net than "yesterday's news" ..... sending her back to the vast upback (gorgeous to be sure) of Alaska and hiding her under a glacier will put her back in perspective for the rest of us with better and more important things to think about ...
She was cute and effective diversion though ....

On the other hand, keeping her out in the open will expose her underbelly as Mayor and Gov, and do so with a bright and unflattering light ....

OH WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO?

[davidSeibert]

The problem is that she was _not_ plucked from obscurity recently, she's been a Republican plant since she became mayor of Wasilla. Here's the story that's been reported by the press, although they haven't connected the dots.

Wasilla went from 0 to $27m in earmarks while she was there, because she hired a law firm that just happened to work for Ted Stevens and Jack Abramoff. Does that sound like a coincidence to you, or do you think the GOP establishment set her up as mayor?

After an unsuccessful run for Lt. Governor, she works for Ted Stevens for a while, heading up his 527 fundraising committee, and does some "ethics work". From there, she apparently takes on Murkowski for the governorship. Both the ethics and the Murkowski business could have easily been arranged behind the scenes with some Republican money.

Finally, she gets miraculously picked out of all US governors by some incredibly lucky blogger, when she has been governor for less than 3 months. Maybe he had a little "help" as well?

Sorry, but the serendipity story just has too many coincidences - Republicans never work that way. Can you imagine Karl Rove relying on luck, rather than trying to fix the game?

[chosenson]

Washington Post interviews Mike Wooten. Trooper Gate.

CNN airs its interview, leaves out key details.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/05/AR2008090503407.html?hpid=topnews

[Brandano1]

The problem with the "Elitist" label that the republican party is putting on Obama is that has a negative impact on the Office of the President. Isn't the Presidency by definition "elite"?

One of Reagans greatest traits was his ability to be both elite and presidential and "The Rancher next door". Reagan had a humble confidence that garnered respect and endearment around the world. Bush and Palin replace the humble confidence with a mean spirited brashness that has the opposite effect abroad. If a single republican is reading this, please do not underestimate the importance or complexity of foreign policy in the coming 4 years. Palin is NOT going to bring anything to the table. I don't trust McCain to hire a better Secretary of State now that he has appointed Palin his second in command.

[RedDogBear]

Reagan was no more a rancher than Bush, he was just better at playing one. Reagan was just as incompetent and ideological as Bush and as McCain/Palin. The difference was the media and the general political climate at the time made it harder for him to get away with the out right lies and American exceptionalism that so many take for granted now.

[esday]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNu1uRcs87I

[pearlone]

Interesting article, but as ordinary expert myself I see it as the internet is what may make Sarah Palin impossible. Without the internet selling "Mrs. Palin goes to Washington" would have been a whole lot easier. At least no candidate will gamble this way again with someone they haven't vetted. Its probably too much to hope for that this will be the last cynical appeal to the base.

[ThankGodforAtheists]

Excellent point.