Democrats believe that some people are poor because others are rich They propagate the notion that theirs is the party of the average working man and woman and that the GOP empowers only elite, wealthy males.

This is an enormous lie, exposed in excruciating relief by John McCain’s selection of a working-class running mate.

In election after election, the Democrats have nominated for president the elite, wealthy males they pretend to disdain.  Al Gore was a U.S. senator’s son raised in the Fairfax Hotel on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C. and educated at the exclusive St. Albans prep school and HarvardUniversity. He became a newspaper reporter after starting, then quitting, both divinity school and law school.  John Kerry, a wind-surfing YaleUniversity graduate, worked briefly as an attorney before entering politics.  His first wife was wealthy, and his second, Theresa Heinz, is said to be worth over $1 billion.

The latest in this chain of easy-life Democratic presidential nominees is Barack Obama, a graduate of Punahou, the top prep school in Hawaii. Later, he graduated from Columbia and Harvard.  A one-time associate in a law firm, and a one-time college lecturer, Obama identified himself as a “community organizer” before his election to the U.S. Senate.  His salary as a U.S. senator is $169,300, but last year the Obamas reported an income of $4.2 million. 

Obama is a member of Chicago’s political nobility.  He could afford to buy a 96-year-old South Side home with four fireplaces, a wine cellar, and bookcases made of Honduran mahogany because a since-indicted campaign contributor, Tony Rezko, helped him meet the $1.95 million asking price by purchasing a $625,000 side yard.  Exclusive connections also helped the Obamas snag a mortgage at a discounted interest rate no working man or woman could ever obtain.

Just when it seemed that the Democrats might continue to get away with feigning a connection to working people while choosing another white-bread, millionaire candidate, the Republicans nominated for vice president a woman without elite roots or family or political connections who has had to work for everything she’s gotten.

The embarrassing contrast between Palin and Obama has left Democrats sputtering.  Palin graduated from rural public schools and the University of Idaho. Her husband, Todd, is a member of the United Steelworkers union.  She is a former commercial fisherman, one of the toughest jobs in the world.  The salary of this full-time governor and part-time mother of five is $125,000 per year.

Palin has unmasked the Democrats as poseurs and they hate her for it.  Sacramento News and Review columnist R.V. Scheide called Palin’s selection “insane.” He dismissed her as “little known,” someone who “looks pretty and eats moose meat.” The paper carried a cartoon claiming that Palin’s only foreign policy experience is having eaten once “at the International House of Pancakes.” Accompanying it was a blog by Melinda Walsh that belittled Palin as someone with “minor-league experience and smarts.”

Liberals said the same thing 30 years ago about another governor who grew up in a small town and graduated from an undistinguished college. But Ronald Reagan proved to be the greatest president of our times.

What really bothers these critics is that Palin does not measure up to the exacting royalist bona fides the Democrats expect of a presidential or vice presidential contender.  She did not attend an exclusive prep school, let alone an Ivy League university.  No family fortune financed her career-surfing, as it did for Gore.  She did not marry into money. Unlike the Obamas, the Palins could not afford a mansion—with or without the help of a crooked campaign donor—nor could they score a discounted mortgage rate.

The Yellow Pages show that there actually is an IHOP in Wasilla, Alaska.  The Palins probably eat there a lot

Palin’s road, like most of ours, has been rough. Obama’s has not.  That alone could cost the Democrats this election.