PenguinSix

Earlier in the primary campaign season, Hillary Clinton was bringing in close to half of the African American vote, she made a bit of a gaffe saying the LBJ was responsible for getting the civil rights bills passed, not necessarily just MLK. This led to an incredible backlash amongst the African American community who were livid that Hillary had diminished the role of one of their heros. Obama’s African American support exploded to near unanimous levels, and these votes were instrumental in securing him the general nomination.

The ‘gaffe’ will go down in history as being a watershed moment in the Democratic primary, costing Hillary the election.

And now the Democrats are doing it all over again with Sarah Palin.

It’s an interesting parallel and one that the ‘open mouth, closed minds’ cannot see. The media and the left are up in arms about this that and the other thing as it relates to Sarah Palin. Many of the attacks on Palin are based on the ‘boogeyman’ caricature that the left holds about conservatives, especially religious conservatives. In their view, all conservatives are hyper-judgmental individuals who will scream ‘eek’ at the first sign of hypocrisy (as they see it). The reality is, of course, far different, but with the left doing battle with their own boogeyman they can’t really see beyond their own misperceptions.

The reality that is there but invisible to them is that many on the conservative side see what’s happening to Sarah Palin’s personal life as yet another example of ‘things that happen’ in life. That she failed to live up to the morals she espouses simply makes the need to fight for them all the harder, not (as many on the left believe) a reason to abandon them.

The second, far more important fact is that the attacks, getting rather personal, wildly inaccurate, or even with a hint of sexism are galvanizing the core of the Republican party. People who were going to go to the ballot and hold there nose and vote for McCain (and there were many) are now going to be volunteering at Get out the Vote functions and passing out literature to their friends. They’ll be on the ground, e*n*e*r*g*i*z*e*d in a way that no speech by McCain himself could have done. So visceral is the hatred of the way Sarah Palin is being treated by the media (enemy #2 to the Republican base) and the smug ‘far left’ (enemy #1 to the Republican base) that the continued pounding of Palin is recreating Hillary’s ‘LBJ/MLK’ moment with the Republicans that just may mean the difference come November.