Not For Real

Q. How do you tell that someone really is "just plain folks?"

A. When that person doesn't keep telling you that he/she is.

Take a look at Sarah Palin's phraseology in the vice-presidential debate of October 2, 2008. It was:

Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again.

We can speak in agreement here that darn right we need tax relief for Americans....

In the middle class of America which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives....

And that's why Tillerson at Exxon and Mulva at ConocoPhillips, bless their hearts....

Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans....

.... and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right?

We're going to fight for the middle-class, average, everyday American family like mine.

Think a speech at your local PTA. Or a job interview. Or a statement in front of the members of your church. Or an opportunity to talk to a prominent politician. A typical American or, as Governor Palin probably would term it, the "average Joe," placed into public in important circumstances will not use colloquialisms, but will do whatever possible to be impressive. He or she is not going to say "doggone it," "darn right," nor refer to the neighbors as "Joe Six Pack." No one who is middle-class would need to tell us constantly how middle-class her family is- and only someone of high social standing would strain to position herself as something less in status than she is. Only a boastful, self-aggrandizing "Washington outsider" posing as part of a "team of mavericks."