All hat, no caribou

Politico columnist Roger Simon says it's too early to count Sarah Palin out. Evidently he thinks America is potentially dumb enough to vote her into the White House. To wit:

“One should not overestimate how much the American voter values intelligence. Adlai Stevenson, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore (who won the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes) and John Kerry were probably hurt more than helped by their intelligence. Bill Clinton masked his intelligence during his first presidential campaign with his ‘Man From Hope’ video and his Bubba image, which were designed to make voters forget he was actually the man from Georgetown, Oxford and Yale Law. ... One should never underestimate the power of a candidate who can make an emotional connection to voters.”

Oddly, Simon is channeling H. L. Mencken who famously said, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." Granted, I am often cynical, but I give Americans more credit than Mencken or Simon do. People may be woefully uninformed and subject to seduction, but they’re not stupid. Nor am I convinced that the electorate would trade an erudite Nobel Prize winner for an incoherent hockey mom who thought "refudiate" was a word. Though long shots against Obama, one could make a rational case for Romney or Huckabee or Thune for president. But not Palin.

“She doesn’t know anything,” said Steve Schmidt, the man who ran the 2008 McCain-Palin presidential campaign. He ought to know. Team Schmidt tried mightily to school “C” student Palin – and failed spectacularly. Given a new poll that says 56 percent of Americans now view Palin unfavorably, most folks know she’s all Alaska hat and no caribou. And, thank Providence, no amount of Reaganesque emoting on Palin’s part is going to change that reality.