People keep saying Sarah Palin would be a good president because she’s “just like us.” Joe Biden insists he’s still a hardscrabble kid from Scranton. In politics this year, “average” is a selling point.

It got me thinking what other professions might be like if they based success on the same thing.

Imagine a tryout for a major league baseball team. A gifted pitcher takes the mound. He throws 96-mile-per-hour fastballs, and fearsome curves. The coaches frown and whisper to each other. Too high-falutin’, they agree. They worry fans will consider him an athletic elitist.

Another prospect steps to the mound. This one’s out of shape. With a big oomph, he throws a medium-speed pitch that’s well outside. But he gives a nice aw-shucks look to the coaches. He tries again, and gets the next one over at about 40 miles per hour, a perfect meatball for a big hitter, but that’s not what matters. Far more important, the coach loves how this guy seems like an everyman. They hire him.

It’s absurd, of course.

But in this campaign, it’s how many are ready to pick a leader. I doubt that history will consider Sarah Palin a political visionary, but she draws tens of thousands to rallies because, well, she’s a folksy hockey mom, and that sells.

If you applied for a job as a carpenter, accountant or plumber, and your skills didn’t outshine other interviewees, I doubt you’d get hired by being folksy. You do in politics.

Even if Obama is not your candidate, let’s focus for a moment on his gifts as an orator who is well-spoken in interviews. That may be hard to do if you’re a McCain person, but humor me for a moment.

You’d think people would consider this a positive. Historically, our most notable figures, from Lincoln to Roosevelt, have used soaring language to move policy and inspire a nation. Fine oratory enhances leadership. And what better for America’s children than to have a president model superior speech.

But in this campaign, Obama’s oratory has been attacked as a negative. Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain have implied it proves Obama is nothing but fancy words — and that his soaring speech even makes him an out-of-touch elitist. Who knows, maybe he is. But they’re not just attacking Obama, they’re attacking eloquence itself and saying prose — even on the stump — beats poetry.

Is that so different from saying a 40-mile-per-hour pitch is better than a 96 because, well, that’s how most people pitch?

Often, this has been a race toward a lower common denominator where candidates, like Hillary Clinton, have found greater traction for drinking a beer than solving health care. I’m sure Clinton was miffed by it herself, but understood she’d win more votes dropping G’s from the end of words like “fighting” than mentioning her Yale law degree. She did plenty of the first and none of the second.

Had she been vying for partner in a law firm, or almost any other high-powered job, she would of course emphasize her Ivy education. What does it say about our politics that to get “hired,” she felt compelled instead to talk about duck-hunting?

What does it say that Obama was happy to shoot hoops but never mentioned he was the standout student of his Harvard Law class?

There’s nothing wrong with being plain-spoken. Harry Truman was. But we seem to be going beyond that. This year, it’s a plus to be average. Or even below average.

John McCain, for example, likes to tell of his performance at the Naval Academy, but what he emphasizes with a smile is he graduated fifth from the bottom because he liked to have a good time. McCain, as we all know, is a bright guy. But boasting about his low class rank works because people relate. That’s fine. But I can’t think of another area where low performance is put high on the job application.

I suppose this is partly about America’s love of equality. We don’t want leaders to be above us.

But in politics, the celebration of things average goes against what we’re about in a larger sense. In other nations, to get ahead, you need to have the right connections, or politics or tribe. America is a rare meritocracy. Even if you’re nobody, you can make it on sheer talent. It’s why so many people want to move here.

Sure, there are mediocre folks who get breaks. But everyone knows that in this hyper-competitive society, the most talented succeed. It’s that way in business, law, sports, medicine or applying to college.

No one trying to get hired to run the division would ever say, “I’m just a common guy with plenty of problems at home like everyone else, wantin’ to work for ya.”

But that’s a standard pitch in the 2008 campaign.

In politics, average sells.

mpatinkin@projo.com