The successful politician Barack Obama published two memoirs before being elected President of the United States. It is said imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Others in American history who have used memoir to political effect include Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, and John F. Kennedy. Sarah Palin is on a national book tour for her �Going Rogue: An American Life.� With her book Palin has reinvented herself as an unannounced Republican, �lipstick on a pit bull,� presidential candidate for 2012. She even appeared on Oprah to market her memoir - Oprah, who famously endorsed Obama early and often.

It was John McCain�s 2008 campaign team that made Sarah Palin his vice-presidential pick, and that criticized Obama as a lightweight celebrity, associating him in a campaign media hit with Paris Hilton. Tina Fey�s Saturday Night Live �Sarah Palin� character, rather than undermining Palin, created a rising political star. Today Palin�s best-selling book is the daily subject of late night television commentary. Levi Johnston, biological father of Palin�s granddaughter, parlayed his association with her celebrity into an appearance in Playgirl Magazine. Any publicity is good publicity since the American corporate mass media have made national politics into show business. An anarchist feminist might say �Paris Hilton for President.� An Oprah-mediated Palin/Hilton presidential debate doubtless would secure extremely high ratings.

On a more serious note, how can we understand Palin�s media and apparent political appeal in this moment? Four factors must be considered. The first, already addressed, is our mass mediated celebrity culture. The second is the figure of Barack Obama in both American popular and elite cultures. The third is the widespread disinformation about the American class structure reflected in the absurd notion that most Americans are middle class. Finally, the �going rogue� of her memoir�s title is a revealing phrase. It is just shy of �going postal.�

The former invokes individualist rebellions of the relatively poor and powerless against the strictures of large bureaucratic organization. The latter may well increase as despair deepens among those disenfranchised and unemployed Americans who have guns. George W. Bush, grandson of a Senator, son of a President, and a Yale College and Harvard Business alumnus was never a working-class hero. While he himself is an American plutocrat, he spoke in a way that American cultural elites found laughable but which made him accessible to millions of less privileged Americans. John McCain, when asked during the campaign how many homes he owned, could not answer the question. Only a plutocrat could be in that position. The question would have stumped neither Sarah Palin nor Barack Obama. Palin�s appeal to the Republican base was partly that she was not McCain, and partly that she had a plain-spoken, working-class background.

Like her, Obama has modest family beginnings. Since the major parties serve the American plutocracy, their candidates after election almost never serve the American people. The Bush and Obama administration bailouts, not surprisingly, showed special solicitude for the wealthy. A year later, with official national unemployment at 10.2% and rising, the Obama White House holds a jobs summit. Quite likely too little, too late. Obama surrounds himself with elite educational products that are clueless about the 74% of Americans who lack four year college degrees. Such degrees provide minimum access to technical and critical skills workers need to do well in a largely post-industrial, information economy. The �undereducated� are overrepresented among the unemployed, involuntarily part-time employed, and those who have despaired of finding employment at all. Palin�s personal story, and her communication and cultural style, appeals to these demographics. Her ideological anti-tax message, however, is of the American plutocracy.

Obama developed his communication style in the elite educational milieu of the United States including the Harvard, Columbia, and Chicago universities. When he speaks, how he speaks signals instantly �plays well with plutocrats.� Like former Stanford University Provost Condoleezza Rice, he has pitch perfect professional managerial language and accent. Palin, like Bush the Second, plays to the national popular with her folksy linguistic style. It appears Americans respond to class as reflected by elite versus popular accents now in a way we have always associated with the British class structure. When at the so-called beer summit, Obama chose to drink Bud Light, it made him seem even more distant from the regular working stiff.

Another specter haunting the Obama administration, even though it includes Cabinet member Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State, is the liberal feminist aspiration for legislative and executive branch power. Following Clinton�s democratic primary loss to Obama, one wonders how Emily�s List would respond to a formal declaration of a Palin presidential candidacy. Palin, who is anti-abortion and favors �traditional family values,� is a spoiler for liberal feminism�s long alliance with the Democratic Party. Moreover, Palin drives many who hoped to see the first female president elected but who support the �right to choose� batty. One wonders too how Clinton, should she ever be a future Democratic Party standard-bearer, would play against �pit bull� Palin in the national popular media culture. What kind of a dog would best represent Hillary Clinton?

If liberal feminism reflects the aspirations of elite American women, there is a potentially more attractive Republican candidate who is a woman of color. Condoleezza Rice, the Bush administration�s former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, is currently writing her own memoir. Rice�s story is similar to Obama�s, one of rapid career ascent after significant achievement in the historically white precincts of American higher education. It contrasts sharply with Palin�s educational struggles as a young mother raising a family. More Americans can identify with Palin�s educational and family struggles than with Rice or indeed Obama�s educational success stories. Further, Rice speaks, like both Obama and Hillary Clinton, in the highly educated accent that signals �plays well with plutocrats.� These are liabilities for prospective candidate Rice as against Palin.

That Obama became a star in the national popular media during the election campaign was shown by the McCain campaign�s criticism of his celebrity status. Perhaps inevitably, Obama�s star is losing its luster as his administration governs. America�s relative educational elite � the 24% who have four year college degrees � favor print media and public television information sources which, while important, are not sufficient for any national campaign. The administration uses these well to present its policies and tactics to this not-unimportant audience. Obama�s message staff can, however, be tone deaf to how the American class structure permeates the national popular media. The White House garden �beer summit� fiasco shows this.

Sarah Palin works hard on her profile in highly mediated U.S. national popular culture. Presidential races play out in this arena and class is the analytic which dares not speak its name. If Palin is the pit bull in the 2012 race, what kind of dog is Barack Obama? A greyhound perhaps? Pit bull owners often identify with the dog�s reputation for unpredictability and fierce aggression as a form of lower class rebellion against genteel �middle class� respectability. Their choice of pet is itself a symbolic variety of �going rogue.� Should America�s foreign wars go poorly, Americans may place their bets on the pit bull rather than the elegant, quicker greyhound.

BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, John Hayakawa Torok, is a critical race theorist and card-carrying member of the USA Green Party, who lives in Oakland, California. Click here to contact John Torok.