This post by the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol quotes a Newt Gingrich email on why Sarah Palin is a big hit with people. That word is simply authenticity. The email is utterly spot on, so I’ll just repost it here and get out of the way. It speaks for itself.

Authenticity is the one word threat to the Obama-Biden ticket.

There is something going on this weekend which traditional pundits, traditional consultants and traditional politicians are simply missing. All of the normal biography-oriented and issue-oriented analysis misses an emotional gestalt event comparable to when Ronald Reagan in 1980 crystalized his leadership in New Hampshire when he seized control of the GOP debate.

In one sudden moment Friday, John McCain fundamentally changed American politics in a manner that transcends issues and details.

The great threat to the Obama-Biden ticket can be captured in one word: authenticity.

There is something unaffected and “unsophisticated” (in the Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and University of Chicago meanings of the word) about Governor Palin. She really was point guard of a state championship basketball team. She really is a competent hunter. She is a hockey mom. She has one son about to go to Iraq.

She has 13 years in elected office

By any practical standard she has done far more in the real world with much more spontaneity and practicality than Barack Obama. And there is something deeply real and courageous about John McCain ignoring most of his advisers and all of the “insider wisdom” to reach out to a younger woman whose greatest characteristic is undaunted courage and a willingness to clean out the corruption in her own party.

This is a moment of stunning authenticity versus a sad collapse on the part of the Obama campaign from ” change you can count on” to politics as usual, as marked by Obama’s choice of a senator first elected when Palin was 9 years old.

As I wandered around from a family restaurant to the dry cleaners to a variety of other non-political places, people kept walking up to me and talking with energy and enthusiasm about their reaction to McCain’s choice of Governor Palin. As I sifted through their emotions and the intensity of their reaction it hit me that they were responding to “the real thing.” The power of Palin is that she is so out of the establishment, and so out of the talking-heads, inside-the –Beltway-elite mindset, that the 80 per cent of Americans who believe we are on the wrong track suddenly can identify with someone who isn’t part of what got us on that track.

Palin will make mistakes. The news media and the Obama researchers will find things to attack. But if she stays relaxed and continues to be authentically who she has been for 44 years, the country is going to love her, and they are very rapidly going to get disgusted with the cynical negative nastiness of politics as usual.

Finally 2008 really has given us “change we can count on.” Ironically, it is the McCain-Palin ticket.

Couple this email with the anecdotal evidence chronicled in this post and I think you’ll have to reach only one conclusion.

Technorati Tags: Newt, Sarah Palin, John McCain, Hockey Mom, Change, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Status Quo, Beltway, Washington, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. I think that Palin could make a good president. She is good for the country, a perfect choice for McCain.

   Comment by george — August 31, 2008 @ 6:52 am

2. And don’t foget George, while the Lord Obama, Tsarina Pelosi and the Dimbulb have been long on talk talk talk about energy, Palin has already been doing it for two years, not with tax incentives either, but just giving them a business friendly environment and returning the State of Alaska’s revenues to the PEOPLE of Alaska.

   Maybe thats what scares the be-Jesus out the libs. The people actually getting some of their money back from the state for a change.

   Comment by T A Gray — August 31, 2008 @ 7:29 am

3. Hi Gary,

   I’ve been writing about authenticity from the perspective of branding and why Barack’s campaign may be the most cynical branding campaign of all times. You and your readers may find these posts of interest. This is the link -

   http://www.citizenstrategist.com/10_politics/

   Comment by Mike Smock — August 31, 2008 @ 10:44 am