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Daniel Larison gets to the heart of the identity-politics hustle that is Sarah Palin:
Speaking of populism, Palin was peddling the phony variety earlier in the week on Hewitt’s program with her claim to represent Joe Sixpack (which is, of course, a name given to normal people by pundits who do not know them).If there's an animating force in the American press besides profit, it's emotional insecurity. Sometimes these go hand in hand; there's no question that the extremely low level of public trust affects the bottom line. But one of the reasons working the ref has been so successful for the right is that they are very good at playing identity politics, not just to voters but to the press. So when politicians posit themselves as being for "the middle class" or "the average guy" people in the newsroom usually latch on to the idea, because they're trying to communicate the very same message.
The question to ask about Larison's observation is why would someone who is ostensibly supposed to represent the average person need to rely on a reductive shorthand to communicate that? Because when Palin calls herself "Jane Sixpack" she's not talking to voters so much as she's talking to reporters who speak pundit and focus group fluently. I wouldn't say she's not talking to voters at all, but those most likely to respond to invocations of "Jane Sixpack" are the kind of people who make more than the average person but like to think of themselves as average. You know, like the Palins.
--A. Serwer
