Do Americans really yearn for an Average Joe or Jane to run the world’s most powerful government? I hope not.
Me? I’m looking for a filthy-rich, success-driven, hyper-achieving, super-capable jerk to run the front of the shop. If I were interested in inept management, I’d look at my own bank account — or better yet, take advice from the current president.
Every election season, candidates go out of their way to convince me that they are The Everyman. This is often referred to as the “Bubba Factor” — named after Bill Clinton, a man who proved you can be a genius and still possess a working-class appetite for 20-somethings and cheeseburgers.
That’s Bubba. A candidate who can hunt varmints, knock back shots of whiskey or chow down at the local greasy spoon with the riffraff.
To believe that goofing off will appeal to working-class Americans only exposes how dumb and monolithic candidates believe working- class Americans actually are.
And they all do it.
Democrats will use class as a wedge issue, but they are indignant when their own candidate’s crusty Nantucket chilling/wind surfing/ snowboarding ways are exposed to the general public. Republicans, who pretend class is irrelevant, will then brazenly point to their opponent’s lack of bowling prowess as a sure sign of American ineptitude.
The idea that average citizens can be charmed by a shotgun — or care about the snobby hobbies of candidates — is a mistake. Sure, some people hunt, some attend church, and some of the richest people I know would accuse you of being a puff (not in those words, exactly) because you drink tall soy lattes every day (even though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. Really.)
Newsweek, in a recent story on the Bubba Factor, points out that in 1960, about 59 percent of Americans lacked a high-school education. Now? Fourteen percent. The number of Americans attending college in that time span has also skyrocketed.
Everyone is now more educated on the issues, if they choose to be. And politicians are far more likely to damage their prospects by pandering to working Americans.
After all, one-time presidential candidate Michael Dukakis wasn’t ridiculed because he was an egghead lightweight who couldn’t drive a tank. He was ridiculed because he was an egghead lightweight who tried to convince us that he could drive a tank.
Barack Obama has recently fallen into the Bubba Factor trap. First, by bowling. (Stay away if you can’t bowl at least a score of . . . actually, I don’t even know what a good bowling score is.) Then, answering for his “bitterness” comments, Obama relayed a teary-eyed story about the hardships of living in Chicago without a garage.
I’m more impressed by the Obama who, in Iowa, asked a group if they had “gone into Whole Foods lately” and seen “what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.”
You can say that again.
John McCain mocked this statement. Yet, to me, it is endearing to hear a millionaire candidate grouse about arugula prices rather than regale us with tales of corn dogs at the Iowa State Fair.
McCain, it’s true, earned his money the old-fashioned way: getting hitched to it. Cindy McCain, a scion of the Anheuser-Busch family, is worth an estimated $40 million, God bless her. And Hillary Clinton, she’s one-half of a power couple that brought in an astonishing $104 million since leaving the White House.
Incredibly, all of the candidates have done their best to hide the fact that they’re loaded, pretending that they actually enjoy eating corn dogs.
Imagine. Once upon a time, achievement was something to be proud of.
No, success doesn’t make you an elitist; it just makes you successful. Pandering to your less successful neighbors by pretending you know how to hunt . . . well, that’s another story.
Reach columnist David Harsanyi at 303-954-1255 or dharsanyi@ .
