You know how it is – having sacked most of his experienced staff “thirsty” Will Lewis has to pack most of his Daily Telegraph with polyfilla – opinion pieces rather than factual reports. Hence today we have Anne Applebaum earning her four figures with a piece on the US election hacked out probably over thirty minutes between a latte and the first dry white wine of the day. But Lewis doesn’t care, it’s filled a page and at least its not Bryony Gordon or Celia Walden so that’s a relief

Applebaum does the standard Toby Harnden – reads the NYT and WaPo, streams something from CNN or ABC then pontificates about the Bradley Effect etc as if none of us has the wit to hit the US on the internet ourselves. There is, of course, the mandatory reference to a “shrill” Palin going negative on Obama about Ayers, so tiresome, so cheap.
(Memo to AA – read Thomas Sowell
about the significance of one’s earlier allies…)
Then comes the compulsory (for DT) Vicki Woods moment. Anne has a friend who is so worried about O losing that rather than posting her vote from the UK she is flying over to make certain it counts..(subtext…..I have the sort of friends who can fly over to Virginia on a whim while you are still trying to work out the times of the next bus to Tesco…)

Here’s a serving suggestion for Lewis – forget AA and hire Joe the Plumber instead. Not only will you get a more realistic viewpoint about the American politics from lower down the pecking order but you could get your cistern fixed at the same time….and he’ll probably be cheaper….

But wait – Alex Spillius (DT Harnden Clone) deflates Joe by pointing out that he hasn’t got a plumbers licence owes back taxes- another McCain fiasco (Palin 2…). Unfortunately ace reporter Spillius has only done his homework in a half hearted fashion by relying too much on the NYT and the unions – and the networks. Joe doesn’t need a licence because he is working for a licensed plumber.

“No, Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher doesn’t have a plumbing license, but his employer does. His back taxes total less than $1,200. Not exactly Wesley Snipes.” (Fox)

As Jules Crittenden has pointed out “I could care less about Joe’s background, whether he’s legit, or whether he is a McCain operative. What I do care about is that I could be attacked like a public figure simply for asking a question, like Joe. I am chilled. No longer undecided either.
Joe is emerging as an everyman uber-Palin, tapping into the fundamental Joeness of America … an innocent trap Obama set for himself, when he went out to talk to regular Americans, and was caught telling them how he really feels. “Share the wealth.” Joe, a living, breathing Norman Rockwell painting in our own time, then is set upon by the Obamist press.
The Joes of America aren’t going to like that. Obama better watch out. He may find he’s stirred up an army of them.”
Oh and about those unpaid taxes – someone else owes even more
But somehow don’t expect Spillius and Harnden to focus too much on Martin Nesbitt – he is even less significant than Joe, he just happens to be Obama’s Campaign Treasurer……..

When the conservative UK Spectator began it’s Americano blog about the 2008 election I really thought it would travel well beyond the Toby Harnden type re-hash (see Daily Telegraph) of the latest from WaPo/NWT/AP. After all, why in this day and age should the DT bother paying loadsadollars to such hacks for regurgitating this stuff when we in the UK can read the US media online in real time? Maybe, at last, we would get some in depth, sophisticated reporting that really came from between and behind the lines – what a hope! Almost all UK commentators (even the so called Conservatives) can’t be bothered to operate outside the zone when it comes to Palin and as for Alaska – call for Borat…

It is clear that Americano’s James Forsyth is not only a Harnden clone who can’t really be bothered to operate outside the zone but he has also made no attempt to try disentangling the details of politics in Alaska…par for the course, I suppose – nevertheless, so disappointing. Still, here is a primer to get you started, James…

I suspect that their sympathies lie with the pet conservatives who are allowed to grace the columns of the NYT – David Brooks, anyone? – who view Palin with disdain because they perceive her as some trailer trash rube from the boondocks who was shoved on to the ticket at the last minute to shore up the hillbilly vote, so dim she thinks she can see Russia from her front room and had to answer “which one” when asked about the Bush doctrine (Ruth Lea on the BBC’s QT a day or so back)….

Well, they underestimate her at their peril. She has rough edges, still has stuff to learn and, of course, would be so out of place at any Beltway dinner table but she is savvy, catches on very quickly and, above all, she is a conservative who connects with ordinary, everyday Wal-Mart people – just watch how they respond to her at her rallies – and as Mayor and Governor her achievements outrank any failures.

It seems unlikely that McCain will win and he will join Gore and Kerry in the pantheon of losers – but Palin will not sink out of view. As the Obama supporting feminist icon Camille Paglia wrote “This is a tremendously talented politician whose moment has not yet come. That she holds views completely opposed to mine is irrelevant.”

She might well use the next four/eight years to become the focus of a new manifestation of Republican Populism, possibly mixing conservative social values with an anti big business platform, maybe an updated version of the Contract with America but much more than Newt 2…much more even than the Gipper……think Bull Moose…think Teddy Roosevelt….

BTW, re Ruth Lea – the Governor’s “nearness of Russia to Alaska” remarks, so often parodied, were attached to other comments about Russia that somehow ended up on the ABC cutting floor (I wonder why?)…and I would love to have heard which one of the five interpretations of the Bush doctrine did Lea have in mind…..