This election campaign has become a delight. Primarily because one of the candidates is “one of us”.

Now I am not saying this is a reason why anyone should vote one way or another. I am merely saying this “one of us” element has brought a lot of fun to this campaign.

By “one of us” I mean Sarah Palin’s a working mom. She played basketball. She goes huntin’. She was in the PTA. She ran a small business. She got into politics in a tiny town where the mayor know most of the people who wander past city hall this morning. Her spouse works with his hands. Her kids dress and act like the kids down the street.

Palin was a pregnant governor. She flew home from some conference to have the baby.

This is sooooo different for us. These types of folks never run for our top offices.

Oh, big time politicians want us to believe they are just like us. They feel our pain. They assure us they know what it is like to struggle with the home budget and make the mortgage payment. They jabber about raising their kids and talking with the downtrodden.

Sorry, but this does not wash. Most of our top politicians are millionaires. Most send their kids to private schools. Most have servants. Joe Biden talks about seeing the houses of the poor as he travels by train from Washington to Delaware. That’s about as close as he gets to them. Obama worked in poor communities. He did not have to live in the midst of the poor. Any more than John McCain fraternized with enlisted men and women in the Navy. (In fact, fraternizing between officers and enlisted is prohibited.)

There are a few who have had “one of us” experiences. Only a few.

Truman had. And he kept a number of his humble habits. He shunned the elites of Washington. Went to bed in the White House at nine o’clock most nights. He preferred that to having to suffer state dinners. He kept in touch with old hometown friends. Many a night he played poker with cronies.