Pitney Continues to Introduce Palin on NRO

Professor Pitney has a piece in today's NRO about Governor Palin and how she rankles the liberal establishment. Pitney writes,

There’s something else that could rally the base even further. In the mainstream media and the blogosphere, liberals are sneering at her. The big hair, the big family, the hunting rifle, the degree from the University of Idaho, the husband who does commercial fishing and races snowmobiles — all these things tell the urban liberal elite that she’s not one of them. Most telling of all, she placed second in the 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant. Bourgeois bohemians don’t do beauty contests.

As we all know well, Professor Pitney predicted it back in October, and today Palin's proving just how unlike the liberal establishment she really is. Her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant, which apparently McCain knew before he made his choice to make her his VP pick. (There's probably a joke in there about Juno and Juneau, but I won't make it.)

Pitney goes on to explain why the conservative base is energized.

Economic conservatives like her fiscal record. Gun-rights advocates are eager to get behind a moose-hunting NRA member. Social and religious conservatives profoundly admire her for welcoming a Down Syndrome baby into the world.

The Left is already using the younger Palin's pregnancy for political gain to pain her as the socially conservative nut in the race. They've made a big deal about how she favors abstinence education. She's against abortion, except in cases of the health of the mother.

Of course those aren't the reasons I've enthused with her. Unlike the polar bears that grace her state, Palin is one of the last limited government conservatives in this country. She sold the old Alaska governor's plane on eBay.

I'm coming around to liking Palin quite a bit.