I've spent the morning in the kitchen with the Sunday newspaper and my coffee cup.
First up was the long, front-page feature story on Tom Emmer, the GOP candidate for governor of our state. (I'd link to it were it not behind a subscriber wall.) He appears to me a recognizable type, a kind of cousin to Sarah Palin, who endorsed him back in the primary season. The details of their biographies delineate characters who are neither the best nor the brightest. Emmer wanted to go to Notre Dame, but his application was turned down, whereupon he enrolled at Boston College and went out for hockey. When after one year he failed to earn a scholarship, he left for the University of Alaska--Fairbanks. He played hockey there, graduated, came back to the Twin Cities, where, after graduating from William Mitchell College of Law, he joined a law firm that he eventually left when his colleagues, having assessed his performance, declined to make him a partner. Meanwhile, he'd gotten married, had a bunch of kids, picked up a couple of DUIs, and won election to the state legislature from a very conservative district in the western exurbia of the Twin Cities. His legislative record is that of a right-wing ideologue--he's championed the chemical castration of sex offenders and state nullification of federal law--with the notable exception of drunk-driving legislation, where his views are curiously more in line with those of the ACLU. No one has ever accused him of having studied too much. In the current campaign, for instance, he has proposed that family members of fallen soldiers should receive state money to pursue their educations. The problem was that the current governor had three years ago signed such a measure into law. It was part of an education bill that Emmer voted against.
Palin and Emmer both frequently call their critics "elitists." They both also talk a lot about how government should get out of the way so that the abilities and hard work of ordinary Americans can be rewarded. There is perhaps some tension between these two rhetorical themes. Sometimes hard work and high aptitude yield straight-A's, Ivy-league degrees, mastery of complicated subjects, and skepticism regarding the right-wing agenda. Such people are "elitists." Sarah Palin resents Katie Couric because Couric is the kind of girl who does her homework. Emmer, when pressed recently by a journalist for details on his state budget plan, shot back: "I'm not running to be the accountant." Knowing about things, being up-to-speed on the details--it's for elitists, and he just wants to be governor.
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