Why is "Seward's Folly" "the real America" and the Aloha State not?

[KamaAina]

Slate's Timothy Noah wants to know. As do I.

http://www.slate.com/id/2201548

Throughout the Oct. 2 vice-presidential debate, Sarah Palin portrayed her Alaska roots as more authentically American than those of her opponent, Joe Biden, who hails from Delaware and Pennsylvania. "I think we need a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street there, brought to Washington, D.C.," Palin declared at one point....

If Alaska is accepted as the Real America, Hawaii most assuredly is not. When Barack Obama took a few days off there in August to visit his elderly grandmother, Cokie Roberts complained on ABC News' This Week that it did not "make any sense whatsoever. I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place. He should be in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, if he's going to take a vacation at this time."

A campaign memo by Hillary Clinton strategist Mark Penn, acquired by Joshua Green of the Atlantic after Clinton's primary defeat, saw Obama's upbringing in Hawaii as indistinguishable from the time Obama spent in Indonesia as a child. Under the heading "Lack of American Roots," Penn wrote: "...It also exposes a very strong weakness for him—his roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and values.

Why is Alaska authentically American when Hawaii is not? At bottom, of course, it's a silly question. Both states, while disconnected geographically from the continental United States, are populated with people whose American-ness is beyond dispute. Every corner of each one of the 50 states is "authentically American." But Alaska leans Republican while Hawaii leans Democratic, and the GOP long ago intimidated the media into believing that only Republican strongholds represent the "real America." These Republican strongholds are usually sparsely populated, and I suppose the media's been sold on the idea that because the United States started out as an agrarian nation, rural areas are somehow more authentic than urban ones.

And, as a commenter pointed out, Alaska is "super white", and Hawai'i most assuredly is not (in fact, haoles like myself make up only about a third of the population).

My only question: Why didn't I think of this first?! :shrug:

edit: header; italics

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Actually, you can call Alaska "super white" only by ignoring the Native population

It's about 19% Native American, Aleut, and Inuit.

[KamaAina]

2. Take it up with "Terry"

http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/1906605.aspx?ArticleID=2201548

assuming, that is, you can get Slate's dumb, Microsoft-driven registration feature to work for you. I never have, which is why I stopped commenting there some time ago.

edit: But, but, but there was only that one Native woman in the town in "Northern Exposure"! :sarcasm:

[Canuckistanian]

3. That's an excellent question

The silence of the RW media about Cokie's remarks is deafening.

But Alaska is equally "exotic" in terms of climate and distance from the "lower 48".

Interesting that the Presidential candidate AND the opposing VP candidate come from these two states.

BTW, I can't think of another country that has TWO major states or provinces that are physically removed from the main landmass of the governing country.

I think it's time for a frank discussion on disconnected states if Alaska is considered "Main Street" and Hawai'i is not.