The Western Ticket

Todd Zywicki thinks this ticket has a distinctly Western feel to it:

It feels like Goldwaterism. And I think this trickles through to the worldview of the candidates and then to policy. It seems pretty clear to me (especially after last night) that John McCain sees himself as Gary Cooper riding into to town to single-handedly clean-up corruption and gun down the rascals.

Palin has a female version of this feel to me. I saw one similar point by Chris Matthews talking about Palin–he observed that although women are going to like Palin “men will like them too.” Why? Because she likes men, and peole like those who like them. What does he mean? I think it is related to this. She has a sense of independence. But also, she obviously likes sports (and was a sportscaster), her speech suggests that she likes cracking jokes and being sarcastic but in a non-mean-spirited way (contra some of Jim’s observations–her cracks come across as locker room “razzing” to me). This has a western tinge to me as well.

If McCain actually were going to ride into town to clean-up corruption by gunning down rascals I might feel better about voting for him.  But seriously, I do agree about the western feel this ticket has, and I like it.  I also think it’s interesting that both Bitter and I see reflections of Sandy Froman in Palin.  Sandy is also a Western woman.