In my day job, I've worked with thousands of people directly, helping tens of millions of Americans with basics like jobs and housing. People are trustworthy and good, and get a lot done when organized at the grassroots level. Good people helping each other out, that's a great expression of American values and democracy.
This is sometimes called "community organizing" and it's part of the vision of the Founders of the USA.
Community organizing or any sort of genuine grassroots efforts is a real threat to Bush, McCain, and Palin. People start looking at actions instead of words. Even a guy like me, busy doing customer service, can see that Palin has a strong record supporting earmarks, supporting the "bridge to nowhere", and has close relationships to the more predatory lobbyists. (Follow the evidence, it's already available to everyone.)
I'm personally more than a little disappointed by the attacks on grassroots democracy we heard at the Republican convention. As you see, it's basically an attack on American values and democracy, and that's not right.
Palin's attack is consistent with the Bush/McCain team, which is on record saying it wants the least possible input from Americans, and it doesn't care what we think. (I'm citing Perino and Cheney.)
Ironically, as Palin was speaking, I was working with people on real ways to include more people in our democracy, focusing on voter registration and actually voting when it's difficult to do so.