When the Democrats resisted the smarmy elites, as in 1960 (John Kennedy always was contemptuous of the crowd around Eleanor Roosevelt) 1976 and 1992 and ran populist campaigns, they won the Presidency. When they ran elitist campaigns, as in 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988 (the “Belgian Endive” versus fried pork rinds campaign) and 2000, they lost.

No doubt that the McCain campaign has botched Palin’s rollout. Clearly, nothing was planned after the Friday announcement to define her to the GOP and the voting public. So a series of mini-cuts are slowly bleeding her, damaging her first and only chance to make a good first impression. Had the campaign thought about it, they would have given her an immediate mission or signature issue---as Carter did with Walter Mondale in 1976 (open closed union doors) or as Reagan did in 1980 with Bush (beef up the foreign policy portfolio of the ticket).

Sadly, they did not do this which has left her vulnerable to attacks by supporters of Obama. My impression is they will not work on this tough lioness. She still has time to define herself before her enemies and the incompetence of the GOP define her.

The Americans who live in the “fly over country” ridiculed by the elites are not disappointed in Sara Palin because her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. They would be disappointed if Governor Palin and her husband Todd encouraged their daughter to have an abortion. They are not disappointed over Palin’s accused mistakes but would only be upset if she did not own up to them.

She still has time to make an appeal to the conservative majority in this country, something a Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge could never do. By picking Palin, McCain has narrowed the ticket’s appeal and thus potentially broadened his base. A “McCain-Lieberman” ticket would not only have seen one third of GOP delegates stream for the Minneapolis airport, it would have been decimated in November, as a listless and meaningless ticket of two men who agree almost nothing. How compelling is that? The elites would have liked it---Populist America would have hated it.

What most Americans understand is that---as Hamilton, Jay and Madison argued in the Federalist Papers—this is all about character. These contests are not about whether the candidates have clay feet but whether they aspire to lead the country and address those issues surrounding the future and the future for the children of America that matters most to them.

And that these things are not just about experience---after all, would anybody vote for the experience heavy Richard Nixon or LBJ for President today---but also about judgment. They know it is not about the avoidance of adversity but how one handles that adversity which counts.

Good judgment that—as flyover Americans know--- comes from superior character.