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Posted
Friday, October 03, 2008 3:34 PM
| By
Rachael Larimore
Noreen,
You ask why it doesn't bother me that Sarah Palin claims a connection to the "heartland." I would chalk it up to a couple of reasons. For one, every time I see a picture from Wasilla, I'm reminded of the small town in North Dakota that my husband grew up in: the tiny city hall, the barely there downtown (except that Alaska's got all that gorgeous scenery). Though I've never been to Alaska, such images make it feel like an extension of the Great Plains, which are definitely part of the "heartland."
Secondly, I guess I take "heartland" less as a shorthand for folksiness and more as shorthand for non-big-city America. In an office conversation earlier today, our colleague Tim Noah pointed out that more Americans live in cities than in small towns, and this blog post in the Wall Street Journal looks at the numbers. The Census Bureau says that 80 percent of us live in metropolitan areas and only 20 percent elsewhere. But it's not that black and white. Some metropolitan areas dwarf others, and not every city is surrounded by the same bland, sprawling suburbs. The "suburb" I live in is actually a town that was founded in the early 1800s and has its own schools, a quaint downtown, and its own identity.
I grew up in a small town. I lived for eight years in the burbs of one our most vibrant and beautiful cities, Seattle. Now I live near Cincinnati, a place the Census Bureau would call a metropolitan area but one that feels minuscule compared with megalopolises like New York or Los Angeles and even considerably smaller than big cities like Seattle or Atlanta. One thing I've learned in my various experiences is that in many ways, people are similar wherever you go. People want a lot of the same things out of life and have many of the same concerns. And thanks to the mobility we enjoy, a lot of people in the big cities come from the heartland. But there are differences. And thank god. One of the things that I love passionately about this country is that it offers such a diversity of lifestyles. If you want to live somewhere where you can have a working-class job and still afford a sizable home for your family, where everyone knows everyone and half the town goes to the high school football games on Friday nights, there are thousands of places for that. If you want to live somewhere where you need to be an executive to afford an 800-square-foot waterfront condo that's within walking distance of Whole Foods and public transportation, well, did I mention Seattle? If you want to work 80 hours a week and be a millionaire, move to Wall Street. Want to be a surf bum or ski bum? The West is calling to you.
Noreen, my fellow Buckeye, you're from a part of Ohio that is definitely hurting more than some other parts of the heartland. I grew up in northeastern Ohio, and I remember the steel plants closing in the 1970s and my neighbors getting laid off. I remember when my grandfather moved his men's clothing store off of Main Street because the area was dying. I know how real that pain is, even if I'm more removed from it these days, and I can see why voters might think that Sarah Palin can't relate. At the same time, it's a problem that's been going on for decades, and I think people are going to be sorely disappointed if they're waiting for the federal government to fix it.
But, to circle back to your original question, when Sarah Palin says she's from the heartland, I get it on some level. Governing an oil-rich state with a budget surplus is indeed different than governing a state that is losing jobs and trying to figure out what to cut from the budget to save the schools and build roads. But most of us make our voting decisions based on a combination of a politican's skills, experience, ideology, and personality. Her experience might not scream "heartland," but her personality does.
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