To remedy the gap between the two Americans, pundits came up with some novel ideas. One Los Angeles Times writer suggested an exchange program through which families in red and blue America could swap children for a while.
The gap has only grown wider in the years since as an ever-expanding new media permits people to ratify their own worldview without straying far afield or tapping into a well of shared information.
The result is greater partisan division, greater allegiance to bullet-point thinking, less mutual understanding. As panelist Peggy Noonan commented, "You lose something in the nation when you're cut into as many small pieces as America is. There's no boring old central reality that we can all argue over."
That is surely true. But there is a boring old central reality that characterizes the lives of the many Americans who are not perpetually plugged in. Their narrative may lack a dramatic arc, but their story is familiar and deserves respect. It's called paying the bills, getting the kids schooled and fed, and trying to keep a rapacious culture at bay.
These are the folks who have found light in Sarah Palin and who have been a major part of the Palin frenzy. They will vote the McCain ticket regardless of whether Palin can rattle off Supreme Court cases with which she disagrees. They recognize themselves in her. To them, her lack of polish and knowledge feels like an absence of slickness and glibness.
McCain's hunch that Palin would catapult him into the White House ultimately may prove wrong, but the Palin phenomenon and the mainstream media problem are of a piece. Therein lies the answer to the media's self-inquiry.
Contempt for one's audience is not a sure way to its heart. Palin's people feel that contempt and they have identified its source as the enemy.