Jeffrey Lord: Is Sarah Palin Bachmann's Goldwater?

Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.

Is Bachmannia replacing Obamamania?

Has Sarah Palin elected Michele Bachmann?

Have liberals who spent the better part of the last three years scornfully pouring vitriol on Sarah Palin helped Minnesota Congresswoman Bachmann -- like Palin an attractive conservative working mother of five (don't forget the 23 foster kids) from the American working class -- to a place on the GOP ticket instead?

In one of the more delicious ironies in the history of presidential politics?

After all this time of insisting Palin was (pick one) "profoundly stupid" (MSNBC's Chris Matthews), "dumb as a brick" (Young Turk's Cenk Uygur, now with MSNBC), "ridiculous and dangerous" (Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post) or "ignorant" (Slate) -- and this is the printable stuff (the unprintable Bill Maher here) --America is awaking to a vaguely familiar political memory.

He (or she) who goes first -- catches all the arrows.

And the next one, or sometimes the one after that -- that next person from the same religious or ethnic group, the next one in line in the once always ignored gender or political philosophy -- gets the prize.

Here's the list:

Al Smith and John F. Kennedy: The group trying to rise? Catholics, Irish-Catholics specifically. Smith had worked his way to the top of New York politics, from a patronage job in the New York City office of Commissioner of Jurors to the very top -- Governor of New York. He was extremely popular, an urban legend, a "wet" (opposing Prohibition) when the country was starting to buck Prohibition. In a time when radio was just appearing, Smith's gravelly voice and thick Lower East Side accent was being broadcast well beyond New York. (See and hear Al Smith  here to get the flavor.) He was extremely popular, an urban legend, a "wet" (opposing Prohibition) when the country was starting to buck Prohibition. In a time when radio was just appearing, Smith's gravelly voice and thick Lower East Side accent was being broadcast well beyond New York. And he was as Irish as (so went the contemptuous saying of the day) "Patty's Pig." But most of all, Al Smith was Catholic -- and no President of the United States had ever been Catholic. Nominated by the Democrats in 1928 to run against the GOP's progressive Republican Herbert Hoover, the brown-derby wearing, cigar smoking Al Smith was the Sarah Palin of his day in terms of the political abuse directed his way. He was said to be a drunk, corrupt, the owner of brothels, the fact that he kept a photo of the Pope in his office (true) a sure sign he would involve America in foreign religious wars. "Bootleggers and harlots would dance on the White House lawn," it was said (although, to his vast credit, not by Hoover). Smith was smeared as a gambler, his accent a sign of ignorance and stupidity if not outright pending evil. And on and on in a fashion Sarah Palin could surely appreciate. On election day Smith was clobbered, carrying a mere 8 states....