When polticians live in fear. . .

. . .of the little guy, then you're doing something right. And, sometimes, it takes an outside perspective to remind you when you're doing something right. For me, that perspective came in the form of a column in the London Daily Telegraph, by Janet Daley. She says it just about as well as it can be said here:

Unlike in Britain, where the opinions of ordinary people are held in pretty much open contempt, at least insofar as they do not conform to the acceptable limits of what might be called BBC received orthodoxy, in the US (which takes mass democracy very seriously indeed) they are treated with immense, electorally significant respect.

That is why Mr Obama's remarks were jaw-dropping stuff in the course of a presidential election: no politician with serious ambitions ever, ever insults the great mass of small-town, working-class America.

That's the reason the American left is sputtering with rage right now. That's why Tom Shales is suffering from severe testicular torsion in the aftermath of the Democrats' debate on ABC. They know that the hoi-polloi was watching and the really didn't want to have this discussion in front of us. For them, it was as if they were parents forced to discuss the details of their open marriage in front of the kids. The kids are never supposed to know.