Arugula-induced amnesia

I'm as effete a Blue Stater as you'll find, but I'm regularly dismayed to see members of my latte-sipping cohort willfully misunderstand their fellow Americans. I'm thinking most recently of today's Maureen Dowd column in the New York Times on Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor who's John McCain's vice presidential pick. Here's smug Dowd:

Obama may have been president of The Harvard Law Review, but Palin graduated from the University of Idaho with a minor in poli-sci and worked briefly as a TV sports reporter.

Now Dowd and I may be impressed by Obama's Harvard Law Review credential. (Especially Dowd, who went to Catholic University of America (where?).) But does she remember why Republicans took over the government some years back? Because Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and a couple of generations' worth of Western and Southern Republican politicians mobilized a great many voters who either a) didn't care about Harvard or b) hated Harvard a lot, and either way thought a University of Idaho education was a fine thing.

If Obama wants to win, what he must do is expand his base beyond Prius-driving, Harvard-enthralled gays and lesbians and convince a whole lot of voters that he's a great guy despite having been president of the Harvard Law Review.