Camille Paglia, who is so edgy she can’t even see the edge anymore, doesn’t need the steekin’ Northeastern Media Elitist preening bullies and pompous blowhards to know which ways the wind blows:

Unfortunately, it’s pretty obvious that Palin still lacks that cadre of trusted pros who are the invisible elves behind every successful national politician — the assistants who gather and vet material and who filter proposals and plan logistics. In a way, this is part of her virtues — her complete freedom from routine micromanagement and business as usual. She does her own thing with seat-of-the-pants gusto. It’s why she remains hugely popular with the Republican grass-roots base — as I know from listening to talk radio. Callers coming fresh from her rallies are always heady with infectious enthusiasm.

I ‘m old enough to remember when "seat-of-the-pants gusto" was called "pulling it out of your ass". But never mind that, Camille gets her clues from the hoi polloi. People who sit around all day listening to talk radio. The common clay of the west. You know, morans. She also knows that America loves a person who is ill-prepared, unstudied, and is not not burdened with details and knowledge and good judgment and  all of that micromanagey whosie-whatsis and such and such. That person should be the President.

Also.

Of course you’d never know that from reading hit jobs like Todd Purdum’s sepulchral piece on Palin in the current Vanity Fair. Scurrying around Alaska with his notepad, Purdum still managed to find comically little to indict her with. Anyone with a gripe is given the floor; fans are shut out. This exercise in faux objectivity is exposed at key points such as Purdum’s failure to identify the actual instigator of Palin’s extravagant clothing bills (a crazed, credit-card-abusing stylist appointed by the McCain campaign) and his prissy characterization of Palin’s performance at the vice-presidential debate as merely "adequate." Hey, wake up — Palin cleaned Biden’s clock! By the end, Biden was sighing and itching to split.

Here we go again:

As to who "won" the debate, the partisan rantings are about what you’d expect, but the real polls are showing that the number of independents choosing Sen. Joe. Biden as the winner of last Thursday’s debate over Gov. Sarah Palin is nothing less than stunning. In fact a real-time poll sampling over 1000 debate viewer reactions found Independent voters swarming for Biden 3-1 or more.

Across the board, on question after question, Independent voters chose Biden as their overwhelming choice. The ratio of independents choosing Biden over Palin averages 2-1 in Biden’s favor — approx. 65% Biden – 35% Palin, but on two key issues – "VP responsibilities" and "Taxes," Independents preferred Biden’s responses over Palin’s by a remarkable 3-1 ratio.

Numbers have a well-known liberal Northeastern bias but you have to remember that Camille Paglia is a cultural critic, not a mathematician, so just shut up with your elitist numbers.