Why Conservative's fake populism works

Noam Scheiber  of TNR came up with something profound the other day.

Liberals generally assume that what most Americans want from politics is a modest improvement in their lives: affordable health care, retirement security, good schools for their children. Under this paradigm, voters should prefer a politician whose life experience has taught him how tough it can be to get by without such staples. The fake populist is maddening because he professes to understand their concerns but has zero life experience (or at least zero recent life experience) that would make such understanding possible.

First I want you to understand what Scheiber is writing. Then I will apply it to our top three candidates. Read on.

But suppose most working-class voters want something different than what liberals assume. Suppose that, in their heart of hearts, these voters don't aspire to be slightly better off than they are today; they aspire to be rich. And one of the ways they evaluate candidates, who are frequently rich themselves, is by wondering: Is this the kind of rich person I'd like to be?

Now ask yourself: If you were a working-class voter in Middle America, what kind of rich person would you want to be? Would you want to be the kind of rich person who eats at pricy French restaurants, plays classical guitar, and vacations among the cognoscenti in Sun Valley, Idaho? Or would you want to be the kind of rich person who snacks on peanut butter and jelly, reads Sports Illustrated, and kicks back at a ranch in the middle of nowhere?

I think this is a great question to ask yourself about your favorite candidate. If I were Rich would I want to be like this person? What ever group of voters my candidate is targeting, would I want to be like this person? If I were wealthy would I want this person to be my best friend?

I used to go nuts over the question: "Who would you rather invite to a barbeque" when it was asked in 2000, and 2004 Presidential elections. I thought that is no way to pick the leader of the free world. But the way this article posed it, made me reevaluate. I began to see that when I myslef picked a candidate, I was doing the same thing. If I was elected what would I want to do? Maybe understanding this impulse will make our candidates better at selling themsleves. Maybe they have been selling the wrong way?

The difference between you and the first kind of rich person is a vast cultural chasm. The only difference between you and the second kind of rich person is a hefty chunk of cash. If you somehow became rich overnight, there's no way you would be accepted among the first group--and you probably wouldn't want to be. But you could easily imagine yourself fitting in with the second group. And that's more or less what Fred Thompson and George W. Bush are suggesting when they throw on the shit-kickers and turn up the drawl. Sure, they're phonies. But, if you were rich, you'd want to be the same kind of phony--not a John Kerry kind of phony. Liberals see wealth and hominess as contradictory, but, for many working-class voters, they're complementary goods. They like their rich people homey and their homey people rich.

Not long after winning his Senate seat in 1994, Thompson got in his rented pickup and drove all the way to the entrance of the U.S. Capitol. By way of explanation, he told a reporter he had hoped to unleash the "doggonedest traffic jam that Washington, D.C., has ever seen from all those staff members trying to get out of town." It might have sounded strange to hear this from a rich Washington lobbyist who had recently owned an apartment only eight blocks from the White House. But that analysis misses the point. The kind of rich person willing to force the Washington establishment to admire the rear of his Chevy is, for many Americans, exactly the kind of rich person they want in office.

This is why I think it's such a mistake when Democrats let the "Washington Cocktail set" talk them into publishing detailed plans. Do most working class Americans have the time or inclination to read a 300+ page detailed report? When does the GOP ever have to release their 300+ page report on lets say

1. Winning in Irag? (they can't)

2. How to pay off the $2,000,000,000,000 Bush borrowed? (they can't)

3. How to fix Healthcare (they don't admit there is a problem)

The MSM never ask the GOP to do this. They just go around tough guying, with the same tired lines smaller government (just enough to pay no bid contracts), war mongering, minority baiting (now it immigrants, last time it was gays, before that Blacks). What Democrats need to do is rememeber they have to have a plan, but they don't need it to be the center peice of their campaign.

By the time Fred Thompson decides whether or not to join the presidential fray, you will have heard the story of his red pickup truck at least a dozen times. The truck in question is a 1990 Chevy, which the famed statesman-thespian rented during his maiden Senate campaign in 1994. The idea was that Thompson would dress up in blue jeans and shabby boots and drive himself to campaign events around Tennessee. Upon arriving, he'd mount the bed of the truck and launch into a homespun riff on the virtues of citizen-legislators and the perils of Washington insider-ism. For good measure, he'd refer to himself as "Ol' Fred" and the Chevy as "this ol' baby."

There was no real reason to think the tactic would work. Thompson's own campaign manager dismissed it as "gimmicky and hokey." Thompson, after all, had spent the previous two decades as a well-paid Washington lobbyist and sometime screen actor. He was about as close to being a salt-of-the-earth Southerner as Truman Capote, and it was a stretch to think average Tennesseans wouldn't pick up on the dissonance. Yet the gambit proved wildly successful. Thompson was down big to Democrat Jim Cooper when he initialed his car-rental agreement. He went on to win the race with more than 60 percent of the vote.

Now think of what would have happened if this had happened instead?

Jonathan Chait, who largely blames the press for enabling this scam: Republicans, according to him, realized long ago that political reporters are much more interested in making vague characterological pronouncements than reporting on matters of policy, or even relating biographical details. The GOP has exploited this quirk by placing character at the center of its campaign strategy, surrounding its candidates with the right atmospherics and mounting personal attacks on their opponents. Democrats, by contrast, believed themselves to be on the right side of most issues, and so they never invested much in these efforts. Again, there is much to be said for this analysis: Had every story written about the 1994 Tennessee Senate race begun, "High-priced GOP lobbyist Fred Thompson, speaking from the red pickup truck he rented to shore up his populist credentials, announced yesterday that ..." the outcome of his campaign might have been different

Let me repeat that in case you missed it: "High-priced GOP lobbyist Fred Thompson, speaking from the red pickup truck he rented to shore up his populist credentials, announced yesterday that ..." That is how Fred Thompson should have been attacked. Not over how he would endanger Social Security, Education, and only be for the rich.

That is why the GOP has pushed the $400 haircut story about John Edwards. John Edwards the son of a mill worker, who made money but never forgot his roots. That is the kind of person a working class man would want to be. John Edwards who gets $400 dollar haircuts isn't. That is why they keep pushing what to most of us is a trivial matter. This is why John needs to figure out a counter attack.

Hillary Clinton successful mother and woman. That is the kind of person a working class lady in Ohio, West Virginia, and MO would want to be. Married and part of a great team. Hillary the woman who is only married to a man because of his money and power, not because she loves him. That is the the scheming harlot their mommies warned them not to be.

Obama, the self made man, who as his first job out of Harvard came back as community organizer and didn't try to make millions. That is something to be admired. Obama the pretty face without ideas, that is the slick minority who takes your job

Our top candidates need to realize this. Stop playing along to the GOP framing. For the love of God, don't respond to it. You need to chnage the conversation. John the next time a person ask you about your hair cut don't say it's a mistake, tell them a "few good ol' boys you know want to pop the next guy who ask you that question in the mouth,  instead of how free trade is hurting them". Hillary the next time a person ask you about your marriage, tell them "you love Bill and everyone who doesn't think so can shove it, and you'll help them do the shovin'"! Obama the next time a person say you have no ideas, tell them "go read the Harvard law review, and go talk to people you helped orgainized in Chicago South side, instead of the Republicans you are quoting drinking cocktails in Washington"! All these response show a little working class sass. All these response is how a newly rich working class person would respond to a old money type questioning how they got into the country club.