Joni Ernst has got Democrats worried, following her rebuttal to the Obama State of the Union address.  It was not so much the brilliance of her insight or the skill of her delivery, but her down-to-earth appeal.  In the age of identity politics, Joni Ernst convincingly ticks a lot of boxes that worry Democrats.

I will be blunt: her delivery wasn’t great.  She sounded just a bit too much like she was reading her teleprompter.  But she was good enough, and given that she is a rookie, she will obviously improve, for this is a skill that can be learned.  Much more important is her charisma, and she has that in abundance.  She comes across as sincere and likable, and that is much more a matter of talent than skill.

A likable Republican!  That’s the Democrats’ worst nightmare.

She also offered vignettes of her life growing up, and let’s just say she is no Mitt Romney.  She is a woman of the people, speaking of her farm childhood wearing bread bags to protect her shoes (just like the other Iowa farm kids on her school bus) and working the biscuit line at Hardees.  What could be more up-by-your-bootstraps?

A Republican who is the very opposite of a plutocrat!  Someone who has blue-collar street (and farm field) cred.  Another nightmare for the Democrats.

She also mentioned that she has worn our country’s uniform for 20 years and is a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard.  Gee, the whole country, except for committed liberals, loves the military.  So much so that when Michael Moore and Seth Rogen snarked about the box office record-breaking movie American Sniper, both men tried to weasel their way out of their blunders, waking up to then fact that they risked dooming their own popularity.

And Joni Ernst worked her way up to a senior officer’s rank, just as the nation realizes that the threat of jihad is real and isn’t going away, and that a president and party that refuses to use the word “Islam” might not be the best approach to dealing with it.

Oh, and one more thing: did I mention that she is a woman?  And that Democrats need the female vote because men already support the GOP far more than they support the Dems?

So Joni Ernst is on the cusp of what promises to be a stellar career.  She has got Democrats very, very worried.