Elitism in GOP Must End

I think this piece on Joe-the-Plumber hits the nail on the head. (Read it all the way through.)

I am fed up with the Conservative intellectual class panning Gov. Palin, Gov. Jindal, Joe-the-Plumber and their like because they are not William F. Buckley.

WFB was a great, great man and intellect but he had humility too. He didn't think you were an idiot if you were not as polysyllabic as he was.

Worse, Ronald Reagan is held up even higher than WFB and he was the Great Communicator not for his florid speech but for the very opposite - his folksy honesty. President Reagan's short sentence "There you go again" was more devastating than any paragraph ever spoken.

Like Reagan, Gov. Palin and Gov. Jindal's less-that-stellar eloquence is not only an attraction but, when backed by their solid conservative governance, an example to us all.

Conservatives Elites should be thrilled that smart, charismatic folks, from the VERY MIDDLE CLASS we need, are rising to the challenges of Conservative governance. Our Elites should be supporting these men and women in every way they can.

We are surrounded with politicians who like to spend their fifty cent words like drunken sailors. I would much rather have a politician who used five cent words for political coin and had the same Conservative tendencies with my tax dollars as well.

I believe that our Conservative Elites are falling victim to the "Cocktail Party Syndrome" of believing that if you can't sit at the Algonquin Table then you are not worthy of much at all. Those Elites should be careful or they will find themselves drifting Left until they are unfit for any table.

Conservative Elites must stop admiring the posturing of intellect and start appreciating the intelligent positions of our rising populist stars. Failing to do so only gives the Left talking points and sabotages our cause. Disagree with the substance, not the style.

Gov. Palin, Gov. Jindal, and Joe-the-Plumber are popular for a reason. Our Conservative Elites should be figuring out why and using those reasons to rebuild our movement. This populism represents the bedrock Conservative values the Conservative middle class is crying out for and not getting from our Elites.

And if they continue to trash folks like Gov. Palin, Gov. Jindal and Joe-the-Plumber, then our Conservative Elites run the risk of being left behind on the dust heaps of history themselves.