Palin Effect

David Boaz echoes my belief that the McCain loss is closely tied to the electorate's rejection of Bush-Republicanism here. He also offers this nice little insight:

Republicans racked up further losses in the most libertarian parts of the country, such as New Hampshire and the Mountain West. Obama won affluent, educated voters and professionals. And if conservative Republicans continue to respond to the loss of educated voters by declaring themselves proud to be “real Americans” who don’t care much for book learning and Darwinism and elite stuff, they will only accelerate the process.

Yep. The anti-intellectualism and faux-populism embodied by McCain and Palin during the campaign was both exhausting and insulting. Note to the GOP: William Jennings Bryan, George Wallace and Pat Buchanan never won a national election for a very real, concrete, reason.