Fineman makes attempt to salvage Palin for McCain

Howard Fineman appears to have stepped into Ron Fournier mode with this cluelessness.

Basically, he argues that Palin being from an exurban area (Wasilla is about 35 miles from Anchorage), that this makes her ideal for McCain to make a pitch for exurban voters.

For you Texans in the largest cities, this is like claiming that being from Ennis (re the DFW Metroplex) or Waller (re Houston) is a good qualification to be vice president.

Here’s Fineman’s take on exurbia:

In Exurban America, you can buy a new home with a driveway and enough bedrooms for a big, traditional family. You can be near to nature, and big playgrounds and spaces. You can be far away from the fears and fractiousness of an old downtown, but close enough to go t0 the zoo or a concert or take in a ballgame.

And (assuming gas prices aren’t insane — a fateful assumption, of course) you can buy a big home on less than a six-figure family income. You can therefore get close as to “Leave it to Beaver" America as most middle-class folks can afford or even find.

First, especially re Peak Oil, Fineman’s already shot himself in the foot and refuses to admit it.

Second, especially in more conservative states, the definition of exurbia is:
Suburban whites fleeing middle-class black flight from central cities and the first ring of suburbs. (You can include Hispanics in that “flight from” in some areas.)

Given that Alaska has mighty few blacks or Hispanics, exurban Wasilla has little in common with exurban Ennis or Waller, Texas, Cedar Hill, Mo. (St. Louis), Shawnee, Okla. (Oklahoma City) or other such places in the lower 48.

Third, that sociological fact undercuts Fineman’s next two grafs of pablum:

ExAm is where the country that traditionalists think existed decades ago still exists – and where people fervently want it to exist.

That makes it, on balance, more socially conservative than other, closer-in suburbs, not to mention core cities. Eager for a settled, traditional life amid the hustle and chaos of modern, 21st century economic competition, ExAm families tend to favor rule-setting religion, old-fashioned family values — and ample but efficient government that has no ties to old arguments over Business and Labor.

That’s all true, to a fair degree, for Ennis, Waller or Cedar Hill. But not for Wasilla.

Howard, your “fact-finding trip” to Alaska must have left you with baked Alaska brain cells.