Matt Taibbi on Sarah Palin’s Smart Idiot Strategy

She really is a new kind of “politician” (in quotes because is she? Celebritician?). Matt Taibbi explains how she panders to the worst common denominator, probably because she really is part of her target demographic:

Palin has figured out that this is really all you have to do to win elections in this country — flatter middle Americans’ moronic fantasies about themselves. The great thing about flattery is a) you can’t overdo it as hard as you try, and b) it doesn’t pin you down to messy political positions, controversies, things you can be harassed about by Chris Matthews and other press weasels.

It’s basically a risk-free strategy. You get up on stage and you say, “I’m just like all you idiots. And you idiots rock!” People will fall for this stuff. The ingenious part in Sarah Palin’s case is that she probably genuinely believes it.

Taibbi argues that even Dubya never had the same success with these same methods, because he was too used to the high life despite his cowboy image. Palin, on the other hand, really is of the people–her people.