Or is it the old populism? Frankly, both the word and the sentiment leave me uneasy insofar as I still haven’t rinsed out the aftertaste of the 1992 Ross Perot campaign where, thanks to the manic political antics of the human hand grenade with a buzz-cut, the nation was saddled with two terms of a scuzzy, low-life, trailer-trash politico who turned the Oval Office into the Oral Office.

I have a natural aversion to “populism” and populist movements because, more often than not, their genesis lies less in careful consideration of the causes which impel the participants to the movement than they do a hazy, loosely defined “sentiment,” a feeling that something is somehow dreadfully wrong or dreadfully unjust and that a sense of order must be restored to the nation - if not the universe itself.

This was the hallmark of the Perot phenomenon and what appalled me most about the so-called “Perotistas” was their inability to articulate at any appreciable length or in any intelligible detail precisely WHY they so fanatically supported him - aside from that fact that he basically represented “none of the above.”

And yet these days a clearly a populist sentiment sweeps through the nation like a whirlwind in the motion picture Twister, sucking up otherwise intact politicians and political structures and depositing them anywhere but the Land of Oz.

What appears to differentiate the New Populism from the laughable mob mentality of the Perot Movement is the fact that these latter day populists are very well informed - unusually so - and can often out-argue their own Congresscritters on issues such as Cap & Trade and health care reform. If the Tea Parties, town halls, rallies and the Great 912 March have taught us anything, they have taught us that the New Populism is unlike anything that ever preceded it in this nation’s history.

Thus I read with considerable interest an article written by Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard and titled “The Palin Persuasion” in which he recounts the history of two of the great populist movements in our nation’s history - one under Andrew Jackson and the other under William Jennings Bryan - arguing persuasively that the Arctic Fox is poised to ride the crest of what is shaping up to be a massive new populist movement that, in my humble opinion, will either alter the course of the federal government or plunge the nation into a second civil war that will make the first look like a family squabble at Thanksgiving Dinner.

Continetti makes the case for Sarah Palin as the 21st Century incarnation of Jackson and Bryan and heiress to the Reagan political legacy and I find his case a persuasive one - not so much because he persuaded me but, rather, because he confirmed what my gut sensed from the first day I saw and heard her.

Populist leaders have held very modest views of government. “Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government,” Jackson wrote in his bank message. “Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth cannot be produced by human institutions.” In Bryan’s view, government was so easily corrupted that it needed to be subject to constant democratic renewal. “The conscience of the nation,” the 1908 Democratic platform stated, “is now aroused to free the Government from the grip of those who have made it a business asset of the favor-seeking corporations.” Reagan famously likened government to a baby–”an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

And Palin? Time and again, she has run against elites who, in her view, are ignoring the public interest. She overthrew a three-term incumbent mayor of Wasilla because he wasn’t as conservative as the people he represented. She used sales tax revenues and bond issues to help the town grow into a thriving suburb. She knocked off a Republican energy commissioner, a Republican attorney general, and an incumbent Republican governor because she felt that they were helping themselves and their friends and not the Alaskan people. As governor, she passed a sweeping ethics reform, changed the tax code so Alaskans got their fair share of oil revenues, and introduced competition and transparency into the construction of a natural gas pipeline.

Palin has an intuitive faith in builders and traders, in hockey moms and plumbers. She is clearly on the side of competitive, entrepreneurial capitalism. But she hasn’t spent much time on the national stage. Nor has she tied her pointed criticisms of the Obama agenda and the liberal media to a larger argument about how ordinary people with common sense can rescue the American economy and revitalize American democracy. Palin has Jacksonian instincts, but she still hasn’t forged her own political persuasion. Time to add flesh to the bone.

Unfortunately, time is running short. After concluding the sale of its immortal political soul, the House of Representatives narrowly approved of the PelosiCare bill late last night. It now is headed for the Senate where its fate - if NRO’s Jeffrey Anderson is to be believed - is anything but certain.

So far, the Arctic Fox belted the ball out of park every time it was pitched at her - but did so from the comfort and safety of a Facebook page. Now is the time to step foward and take the reins of leadership. Now is the time to spearhead a force for change unlike anything seen since the 1770’s.

Is it time for Sarah Palin to emerge?