What does it mean to say that Sarah Palin has “populist” support, and why has she been discussed in such different language to Mike Huckabee? Daniel Larison writing in The American Conservative delves into these questions:

“If Palin is a “commoner” by background, and indeed that is the main appeal of her candidacy to her enthusiastic fans, she is necessarily even more wedded to conventional GOP establishment views on policy because it is assumed, apparently correctly, that she has to be brought up to speed on most of these issues. The deal is straightforward: Palin exchanges her outsider status for membership in the highest level of the national political class, and in return for the boost her outsider reputation lends the old establishmentarian she agrees to accept the establishment’s views, which obviously have nothing to do with populism of any kind.”

Read the full story here.