A President Who Likes Us

What draws people to Sarah Palin? A variety of things, but tonight I want to focus on one: she likes us.

First of all, she embraces small-town USA. The government and the media elites call us racists, homophobes, bitter and clingy, and teabaggers. Sarah Palin calls us the salt of the earth. She embraces the little guy that the elites despise and call stupid.

This doesn't mean that if you live in a big city you're off the 'Cuda's radar. Small-town USA is more of a way of thinking, a state of mind. It is a groundedness, a set of values to live by. You can be a millionaire and share those values. I could go to any city and find a grain with which to salt the earth. I could go to any small town and dig up a dirtbag.

An embracing of the one isn't an exclusion of the other. Flip through the pictures of those who went to Sarah's book-signings and you will find all kinds: young and old, suits and shorts, hunters and housewives, business people and teenagers.

There are stereotypes on both sides. City people think we're uneducated hicks and we think they're educated idiots who don't have the common sense God gave birds.

At the end of the day, all people really want is a little respect. People want to be included in the discussion, not told how it's going to be. We don't want to be bullied or talked down to.

Barack Obama says that we're bitter and clingy. He says that we're not smart enough to grasp the complexities of his brilliant policies. And he wonders why we don't embrace him with open arms and fall all over ourselves thanking him for pointing out how dumb we are.

The analogy of marriage is a good one. It's the difference between a spouse who peppers you with compliments and a spouse who tells you that you're stupid all the time.

When you marry someone, you are not marrying perfection. But you're not going to get very far if all you ever do is point out your mate's faults.

America is not perfect, nor will it ever be. You can spend your time like a liberal picking at every fault and exaggerating every flaw in an attempt to fundamentally change the entire system, or you can spend your time like a conservative and extol the many virtues that exist while working to patch up the flaws without ruining the good stuff.

It's the Andrew Halcro conundrum. The man may have an IQ unrivaled by Einstein (yeah, right), but he's not constructive. Rather than build up, he chooses to tear down and call everyone else an idiot. That's a turn-off.

Sarah Palin likes us. In a time when our current President can't seem to apologize enough for our existence, people are flocking to Sarah Palin because she thinks we're great.

Consider some of the language in her latest Facebook note - these "brave warriors" who've gone on "heroic missions" should be returned to their unit - "with our gratitude for their service."

You feel that? It's a cool breeze on a hot summer day.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a President who likes us?