Can the super-rich former governor of Massachusetts  the son of a Fortune 500 C.E.O. who made a vast fortune in the leveraged-buyout business  really keep a straight face while denouncing “Eastern elites”?

Can the former mayor of New York City, a man who, as USA Today put it, “marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu”  that was between his second and third marriages  really get away with saying that Barack Obama doesn’t think small towns are sufficiently “cosmopolitan”?

Can the vice-presidential candidate of a party that has controlled the White House, Congress or both for 26 of the past 28 years, a party that, Borg-like, assimilated much of the D.C. lobbying industry into itself  until Congress changed hands, high-paying lobbying jobs were reserved for loyal Republicans  really portray herself as running against the “Washington elite”?

Yes, they can.

On Tuesday, He Who Must Not Be Named  Mitt Romney mentioned him just once, Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin not at all  gave a video address to the Republican National Convention. John McCain, promised President Bush, would stand up to the “angry left.” That’s no doubt true. But don’t be fooled either by Mr. McCain’s long-ago reputation as a maverick or by Ms. Palin’s appealing persona: the Republican Party, now more than ever, is firmly in the hands of the angry right, which has always been much bigger, much more influential and much angrier than its counterpart on the other side.