Republicans have fired up the “One of us!” tom-toms over John McCain‘s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for the vice presidential slot on his ticket, and now they’re saying that having an
unmarried teenage daughter who is pregnant, a state ethics investigation stemming from a nasty child custody
battle involving a former family member, and blue-collar husband who racked up a DUI citation as a 22-year-old may all help solidify the national newcomer’s reputation as a regular American, according to this Politico piece by Charles Mahtesian.

“The media doesn’t understand life membership in the NRA; they don’t understand getting up at 3 a.m. to hunt a moose; they don’t understand eating a mooseburger; they don’t understand being married to a guy who likes to snowmobile for fun. I am not surprised that they don’t get it. But Americans get it,” says Florida Rep. Adam Putnam, who surely knows of 3 a.m. moose hunting. “A mooseburger means she is like one of us. She is not some jackass who’s ‘gone Washington.'”