I am from Kansas. There is an entire book dedicated to Kansas, and how people in this state figure into the political landscape.
http://www.amazon.com/...
According to What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America Kansas is the home to the poorest county in the United States, High Plains County. A county that 80% of the population voted for Bush in 2004. I preface this diary with keeping this in mind. Kansas is notorious for being red. The reddest of the red states. We're the state that became a national joke when our state school board decided to get intelligent design integrated into the science curriculum.
And yet, everyone I've talked to my reddest of red states? Dislikes Palin...and wasn't impressed with her debate performance...
Palin on Thursday was condescending and rude. I and my female co-workers are Palin's target audience (okay, I'm probably not, but my co-workers are). Most of my co-workers are social conservatives. I wouldn't consider them evangelicals, but they support abstinence education, restricting abortion to the first trimester (and encouraging the choice of life), and believe intelligent design should be taught in the classroom. And yet it this group of people who are appalled by Palin.
I thought it was interesting that our water cooler talk on Friday, wasn't about the many of issues that came up during the debate, but instead about how demeaning Palin was to small town America. As if people in small towns are too stupid to understand complete sentences and need catchy phrases in order to grasp the issues. According to these people she seemed fake. And what I found most interesting was that this same group of people were confused about why Palin didn't discuss the McCain/Palin's stance on the economy.
This is the thing, for all Palin's talking about how she's just a regular hockey mom, I don't think she's connecting with voters here in the Republican strong-holds. Oh, I don't think that Obama has any shot in hell of winning Kansas...afterall the state overwhelming voted for Bush. But, I do wonder if people in Kansas, many of whom still support Bush, are thinking about sitting this election out, I wonder how many small town folks in swing states are thinking the same thing?
This election is going to be about turnout. And I think that Palin is hurting the GOP, not helping. At least she's not helping with small town Kansans. You know who are the bread and butter of the Republican party.
ETA: Thanks to SciVo for the title suggestion!