Palin by comparison
By Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail
Are ordinary people beginning to fight back at last against the forces which, over the past half-century, have turned their world totally upside down?
Across the Atlantic, Americans have been convulsed by the overnight sensation of Sarah Palin.
At a stroke, this hockey-mom ‘pitbull with lipstick’ has galvanised John McCain’s presidential ticket and given the Obama Democrats their biggest and maybe insuperable problem.
But her significance does not stop there. Despite obvious differences between the U.S. and the UK, her triumph carries important lessons for British politics, too.
Palin’s storming of the political citadel is the victory of the outsider, the little person who takes on the establishment — and wins.
In Britain and America — as in other parts of the Western world, too — an enormous gulf now yawns between leaders and led.
People have concluded that politicians of all parties seem to inhabit a world apart, governed by self-interest, cynicism, corruption, incompetence, deep contempt for the electorate and an incorrigible instinct to deceive them.
Politicians know this. Which is why they all purport to stand on a platform of ‘change’. But change from what to what, precisely?
Unless there’s a clear answer, ‘change’ becomes a pointless soundbite which risks creating an impression of yet more political sleight of hand.
This is the trap into which Barack Obama has fallen. Yes, he has amazing gifts of charisma and oratory; along with his youth and black ancestry, this all helps create the impression that he is an outsider and embodies a fresh start.
But, on closer inspection, he looks suspiciously like yet more of the same old same old. The way he changes his political message to fit the audience he is addressing sits ill with his pitch to represent a new politics of integrity.
And his voting record and positions on social issues place him firmly among the Left-wing elite which has waged such devastating war upon the West’s moral values.
By contrast, Palin has a very strong sense of right and wrong rooted in her evangelical Christian faith. Perversely, this damns her in the eyes of the Left as the ‘hard Right’.
Read HERE.
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