“[A]ccording to The Huffington Post, Obama’s lack of experience is immune from criticism because he attended Ivy League schools, was a serious and successful student, is a well-traveled, published author, and has a diverse background. Heck, he’s me! Yet, in every one of my encounters with America’s rural communities, the diversity of my privileged experience was eclipsed by the depth of theirs. I had rhetoric; they had well-measured speech, punctuated by forbearing silences. I had easy answers; they knew there was no such thing. It is not that the Republican base is anti-intellectual, as David Broder claims; they are anti-elitist. An Ivy League education is hardly a universal signal of competence in anything other than the liberal cultural canon ” — Joan Chevalier, a New York City speechwriter and essayist, writing in the Boston Globe.

as told in the WSJ Political Diary

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