By Mary Sanchez, Kansas City Star columnist

You remember critical thinking, don’t you? That skill you were supposed to pick up in civics class?

It’s conspicuously absent from political discourse these days. Instead, we get the “you hate America” kind of talk. Accusations that the other guy, or gal, is “elitist,” “sexist,” “racist,” or simply “disrespectful.” Often the same epithets are applied to people in the media who question a candidate too deeply.

Yet imagine a teacher telling a student he or she is being hostile by asking hard questions, doing too much research, looking beyond the slogans and thoroughly researching a candidate’s actual accomplishments.

The crux of our political derailment is that old devil, identity politics: voting for people because they seem “like us.”

Otherwise sane people seem to be succumbing to it. People like the nice man who wrote to me after reading a recent column questioning Sarah Palin’s credentials:

“She epitomizes what our forefathers looked for in citizens to step forward to be elected officials in our government,” wrote my correspondent, who read the column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Citizens who have jobs, families and work like the vast majority of the rest of us.

“Not rich people who have several houses in different states, not people who probably haven’t held non-political jobs — ever. Not people who are so far removed from normal everyday life that they can’t relate to us and don’t know how much a gallon of milk costs or how much school tuition costs.”

Wait. He just described President Bush and Sen. John McCain, Palin’s running mate.

But what is more glaring about our derailment by identity politics is the unabashed rush to value the ordinary over the more qualified, simply because it seems more authentic. Palin, or any candidate who is of the masses, is preferable because she is so plain, so down home, so much more likely to be stuck in the line with everyone else at the local box store.

So now we’re seeking common folk status as a requirement for one of the most significant and powerful positions in the world? I gain no comfort sending to the White House a person who equals my level of international travel, time with heads of state and educational status.

The identity politics perspective — or severe lack of a broader perspective — is why people are comparing Obama’s Harvard law degree, his having been elected president of the Harvard Law Review, his time as a state senator and a U.S. senator, and are still coming away with the impression that Palin’s time spent earning one degree by attending four different colleges, having re-enrolled at one, is a sign of her superior intellect.

Oh, yes, and there is her “executive experience” of having led a town of 5,500 and a state of 650,000 people.

Some are attempting to compare Palin’s vita to Teddy Roosevelt’s. Both were in their mid-40s when nominated for VP, had numerous children, and could hunt and skin a moose. Comparisons of banal commonalities, folks, tell us nothing about Palin’s ability to govern.

To his great credit, my letter writer also indicated that he’s open to at least the ideal of incorporating information. That’s a sign he’s on the right path.

He wrote that effective elected leaders have been those who surrounded themselves with “political advisers, cabinet members, military advisers and a host of others,” and were “smart people who made intelligent, informed and decisive decisions.”

No nebulous nod to “She’s one of us” there.
Doris Kearns Goodwin, a prolific chronicler of past presidents, recently penned an essay noting that some of the most successful presidents exhibited self-control, a moral compass, a gift for inspiring others, self-confidence, the ability to learn from errors, a willingness to change, and emotional intelligence.

That’s more like the stuff we learned in civics class — or at least should have. Now if we could only find a way to make those lessons stick.

©2008, The Kansas City Star.
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To reach Mary Sanchez call 816-234-4752 or send email to