‘Puter was watching the Sunday morning news shows this weekend, and Morning Joe this morning. During the course of watching the pundits, left and right, ‘Puter had a revelation.

The party that manages to appear less condescending to independents will win the presidency in 2012.

Based on ‘Puter’s anecdotal observations, it’s going to take a lot of work for either party to muzzle its condescending pundits and insiders.

What is an elite? To ‘Puter, an elite must possess two things: credentials and mindset. Neither credentials nor mindset alone is sufficient. An elite must have both.

Credentials can’t be faked. Elites tend to value having attended the “right” school (Ivy League, maybe Stanford and Berkeley), studied the “right” subjects (political science, “studies” majors) and held the right jobs (Supreme Court clerkship, Congressional staffer, left wing think tank intern, etc.). It also helps if you are from a major metropolitan area, preferably in the Northeast (Boston, New York, D.C.), or have a family pedigree (Kennedy, Brzezinski, Ickes).

Mindset is the second prong of the ‘Puter elite test. What is the elite mindset? It is an almost religious faith that you and your fellow travelers are the best and the brightest, and that you (and only you) are capable of saving your fellow citizens from their backwards, ignorant practices and beliefs. A hallmark of this mindset is the unquestioning belief that book learning beats common sense each and every time. Any outcome inconsistent with book-learned expectations is discounted or ignored. Many elites also exhibit irrational anger when others don’t accept their self-proclaimed superiority, both in beliefs and in morals. See, e.g., global warming, low flow toilets, incandescent light bulb ban, Dodd-Frank, ObamaCare, etc.

This fetish of elitism is more prevalent on the left than the right, but both sides (particularly those ensconced in Washington and New York) fall prey to it. You can see elitism in individuals as politically different as George Will and Mika Brzezinski, or George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Interestingly, some of the most politically powerful folks on both sides would not be considered elites by the elites themselves. George W. Bush has the pedigree (Harvard, scion of a political family), but not the mindset. He is, after all, a conservative.

Sometimes, elites adopt an outsider as one of their own. This usually occurs where the individual in question rises (inexplicably to elites’ mindset) to a position of great power or esteem. Take for example Bill Clinton. He went to the right schools and thought the correct thoughts, but his background was pure white trash. Yet he became president, so elites treat Mr. Clinton as one of their own. And make excuses for his boorish behavior.

Some who think themselves elite are only being humored by elites, who use the non-elite elites for their own purposes. In this category fall such notables as Michael Moore and, come to think about it, most of the Hollywood crowd. These folks may be dumb as a bag of hammers, but elites are pleased as punch to have Hollywood (and the media) pushing its preferred values into millions of American homes each day. If elites must pretend in public that Hollywood’s starlets and moguls are somehow equal to them, they will do so to advance the One True Agenda.

The problem for elites is convincing others that credentials and ideology trumps merit. Most Americans, annoyingly to the elites among us, still believe in the quaint notion of meritocracy and fairness.

Mostly, this is because elites come across as condescending bastards. What about woman who graduated Huge Directional State University with a B.S. in economics, who started and runs her own successful business? How about the skilled tradesmen who build, wire and plumb our houses? To elites, these folks have no idea how things ought to be done. They are mere cogs in elites’ grandiose societal plans. To the extent they meekly going along with elites’ Rube Goldberg legislative schemes, they are to be ignored. When one of these drones from Sector 7 G dares speak in opposition to an elite idea, well, this person must be reviled and destroyed. This is why Americans hate elites. As Bernardo said in West Side Story, “Every one of you hates every one of us, and we hate you right back.” Just so.

The default American position is not elite. Your place at the starting lineup is guaranteed, and we promise not to interfere with you as you play the game. Whether you win or not is up to you. Train harder, study harder, work harder, and you can go as far as you want. Meritocracy, plain and simple. Government exists in this world view as a referee, and not as a judge. Think of the difference between hockey officials and figure skating judges. The former enforce rules as evenly as possible, while the latter picks winners based on amorphous “standards.”

Elites want the game judged (themselves, of course), so the outcome accords with elite preferences. You minorities start over here. White folks, back of the line. Women? You’re kind of a minority, even though you’re a majority of the population, so here are some contract set asides for you. And if by some fluke, a non-preferred player gets close to winning, change the rules. The ends justify the means, after all.

Elites viscerally distrust those who believe in meritocracy. This explains elite hatred of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, which would otherwise seem irrational. The Tea Party and Ms. Palin believe (at least on the surface) that Americans are able to make their own choices and deal with the consequences of those choices. The Tea Party and Ms. Palin also believe (correctly) that elites are no better equipped to deal with America’s problems than your average plumber. They also believe (again, correctly) that elites have managed to spectacularly crater our economy, then to smother a nascent recovery in its crib.

Yet not all Democrats are elites or elitist, nor are all Republicans average Joe Americans. Barack Obama is an elite in a way Harry Truman never was. George Will is elite in a way that Marco Rubio will never be, nor likely want to be.

So how does this play in 2012? Simple. The party that puts forth the candidate and ideas that seem the least elite will win.

Democrats are starting in a hole, as America is quickly realizing that Obama’s technocratic favoritism has harmed our country greatly. The great Democrat hope in 2012 is to demagogue MediCare, and hope that no one notices (1) they are lying and (2) it’s an elite-created Ponzi scheme doomed to failure since its inception.

Republicans have a natural advantage with independents and swing voters. However, being Republicans, they usually manage to blow it on the national level. In this election, if Republicans bog down in Medicare, other than explaining in simple terms that Democrats are liars, they will lose. If Republicans nominate someone who appears to be elite, giving the public a choice between two elites, they will lose. No one out-elites the Democrats. Republicans have to choose the right candidate, and ‘Puter’s not sure Romney’s the guy.

So why do Democrats win national and state races? Because elitist policies have created a liberal political power class co-dependent on the serfs created through their manipulative, winner-choosing enactments. Think New York, with the Cuomos as the power class and teachers unions, welfare recipients and public employees as the serfs. They both need each other to survive, guaranteeing Democrats a large base as a starting point.

Anyway, this essay has gone far too long, and is far too disjointed for ‘Puter’s liking. He hopes that he’s managed in his unique way to get across some of his thoughts on elites, and their detrimental effect on America.

But probably not.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.