During the last episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska," TLC put up this teaser for its special "Kennedys' Home Movies."

Yes, they are both TLC shows, but why did TLC think the people watching a show about Sarah Palin and her family would be susceptible to a show about the Kennedys? (Meade raised this question in the comments to the post earlier today about "Sarah Palin's Alaska.")

Your first thought might be that it doesn't make much sense because liberals love the Kennedys and conservatives love the Palins. But let's assume TLC isn't run by idiots, that they know how to appeal to viewers. If you had to argue that a good chunk of the "Sarah Palin's Alaska" audience would like to watch "Kennedys' Home Movies," what would you argue?

I'd say: Not all American TV-watchers are strongly grounded in one political party or the other. These people are not cemented to abstract ideology. They may feel their way into politics through personalities. Or they may not care that much about politics at all and simply enjoy peering into the family lives of celebrities, and politicians are a special, elite breed of celebrity, like royalty. The Kennedys have been, for many people, America's royalty, and the Palins may be the new royal family that people who like that sort of thing like.

Obviously, there are differences. The Kennedys posed as European-style aristocracy, and the Palins present themselves as working-class Americans. But both are very much big, colorful families with a strong sense of geographical place — Massachusetts/Alaska — and a mesmerizingly beautiful and feminine woman to fascinate us. Both families have a lot of children who we get to see looking robust and active in outdoor settings — especially boats.

There's a romanticism of the family about it all. I'm not saying that's good. It's a point of entry by which political opinion seeps into a certain very common type of American brain. And it happens through television. Pay attention.

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By the way, what do you think of the crazy culture clash that is Johnny Cash singing the Beatles ("In My Life") over home movies of the Kennedys?

At the Massachusetts Tavern...

... let's watch the election results and talk about what it all means.

IN THE COMMENTS: "Brown is the new, male Palin."

Oh, no! It's men in trucks! Plowing in from Texas! Running down all the women! Rape!

"They’re sending people from Texas."

An attempt to scare some enthusiasm into Massachusetts voters.

And it's not just the fear of Texan outside agitators, there's a gender war a-comin':

At a Friday rally with former President Bill Clinton and again Saturday, Coakley ... raised the 4-wheel-drive factor, quipping that just because somebody drives a truck doesn’t meant they’re headed in the right direction.

That's a quip because Scott Brown drives a truck.

But Coakley, who despite a modest background carries herself with a patrician bearing...

Does she also bear herself with patrician carriage?

... has compounded the problem voters with a series of gaffes that suggest she’s out of touch, most recently on Friday when she appeared on a Boston talk radio show and seemed not to have heard of former star Red Sox star pitcher Curt Schilling.

Some Democrats worry that there is something deeper at work.

“I think it’s a man-woman thing,” said Robert Cullinane, a Teamsters local leader in the Boston area.

Teamsters!

Cullinane, speaking following the Clinton rally Friday, said some of his own members know that Brown opposes their agenda but are telling him, “'I’m not voting for that broad.’”

Those louts! Those unnamed louts that Cullinane — does he have patrician bearing? — must stoop to represent. Those brutes say "broad"... at least as paraphrased by the union leader who surely has their interests at heart.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “Here is someone who has voted against them on state issues yet they’re going to vote against ‘that broad.’”

"Here"? Where? Are you pointing at someone? Who is that horrible trucker?! Unbelievable!

Despite its liberal tradition, Massachusetts has never elected a female senator or governor.

OMG! Liberals might be sexists! Sound the liberal alarm! Liberals, prove you are liberal by voting for a woman!

See how that article — by Jonathan Martin in Politico — tried to flip you? First, nonentities were presented as prejudiced against a woman, ready to vote against Coakley because she's a woman, and then, suddenly, liberals are supposed pushed to feel that they ought to vote for her because she's a woman.

Oh, no! It's men in trucks! Plowing in from Texas! Running down all the women! Rape!

If the Republican Scott Brown wins the Massachusetts Senate seat, will it stop the health care bill?

No, apparently the Democrats have a plan. They'll either pass the bill before Brown is seated or — in desperation — have the House vote on the Senate version of the bill. No Senate votes on healthcare once Brown arrives — that's the strategy.

But wouldn't that shock the American public? If Brown is elected, a key factor will have been the healthcare bill. As the campaign comes to a rolling boil in the coming week, there will be plenty of talk about how the bill is at stake. If the people of Massachusetts elect Brown, it will and should be read as stark antagonism toward the bill. And Massachusetts antagonism should hurt a lot, since Massachusetts is very liberal, and the Massachusetts opinion is informed by real-world experience with healthcare reform at the state level.

Will the Democrats have the nerve to go through with the plan to exclude Brown? Probably! For one thing, Brown only has his opening because Teddy Kennedy happened to pick an inconvenient time to die. Everyone knows Teddy wanted the bill. Gotta do it for Teddy. For another thing, the Democrats have come so far and risked so much. How can they accept failure now? No matter how much it hurts, they will figure out how to deal with that later. Opponents of the healthcare bill may implore them not to make such a terrible, suicidal mistake, but why listen to advice from your enemies?

If they don't do healthcare now, how will they ever get it together to do healthcare reform again?

ADDED: Neo Neocon says:

But I wonder why the Democrats have seen fit to let out this information now. Even if they are planning such an action, why announce it at this point? Scott Brown hasn’t won, and chances are he won’t. So why let the people of Massachusetts (and the United States) know in what contempt the Democrats hold them? Why make it so clear that the will of the people does not matter, if that will happens to run counter to the plans of those in power?

Is it really possible that the next Senator from Massachusetts...

... will be a Republican?

The Democrat (state Attorney General Martha Coakley) is still ahead (in the race to replace the dead Kennedy), but only by 9%, and her strongly favor/strongly disfavor ratio is terrible compared to the Republican (state Senator Scott Brown). It's a special election, and special elections depend more heavily on who happens to vote. If we assume it's the people with the strongest opinions, then that big disparity in the favorability ration is good news for Brown.

The election takes place on January 19th, and given this new poll, now that everyone's paying attention, there should be a lot of action in the next 2 weeks. Presumably, people will vote not just based on the individual, Coakley/Brown, but based on what they want to see the U.S. Senate do with the healthcare bill. That question is especially interesting because Massachusetts has actually experienced a similar sort of healthcare reform since 2006. Though liberals tend to support the reform, only 32% of Massachusetts voters think the state healthcare program has been a success. (36% call it a failure, and 32% didn't know.)

In short, it should be an interesting couple of weeks.

Transgender bathroom rights in New England.

The Act Relative to Gender Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes bill.

It is one thing for a person born as a man who has been surgically altered to become a woman to be allowed to use the women's bathroom. It is something else entirely to allow a man who has had nothing altered, but simply claims he "identifies" as a woman, to use the women's bathroom.

That is a recipe for embarrassment, fear and even confrontation — the kind of things most legislators would probably say they want to prevent. The New Hampshire House of Representatives, which passed a similar law recently, may find it has been hasty....

[T[he various definitions of transgender are so amorphous and broad. According to one, it is "a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies that diverge from the normative role (man or woman) commonly, but not always, assigned at birth, as well as the role traditionally held by society."...

In short, it can mean virtually anything that doesn't fit so-called "normative" gender roles....