Well, I think I owe my growing-up experience with "folks" at least as much credit for picking up on that, but you might be right that a combination of that experience and my experience with sociology is needed for it to really come through clearly.

On the other hand, I think it's interesting that polls consistently show most people find her likable, yet are persistent in also saying she is unqualified to be vp. And likewise, the flash polls on the debate looked at undecideds, which include a lot of working-class swing-state "folks," and likewise people said she was more likable than Biden, but that Biden won the debate, and twice as many people said they were now committing to the Obama-Biden ticket than the McCain-Palin ticket...so maybe people are more savvy than they're given credit for.