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Originally Posted by TSGracchus
I wonder if what you're saying about working-class people voting against candidates perceived as intellectual is actually true. Could that not be a distortion caused by looking only at recent history? I'll grant you that Bush comes across as a regular guy even though he's not one, but surely everyone knew Clinton was a Rhodes scholar and a very clever fellow, and if there was ever a candidate who screamed "money" out of every pore, it was Bush the elder. Reagan? He was a movie star fercryinoutloud! How "regular guy" can that be?
I suppose you could say that Carter came across like a regular guy. Nixon sure didn't though, nor Johnson, and of course to suggest that about JFK is just silly.
I don't think that dog will hunt, honestly.
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What do they call it, there is a term for shaking hands and kissing babies. "Retail Politics". That's it. Bush Sr won because Dukakis was an idiot and a dufus. That's the only exception. Carter won because he reminded people that there was still a core of decency and tact in the nation that had gone buried for awhile.
I don't think most people knew that Clinton was a rhodes scholar. And for those who did know, they are the educated. Clinton was one of the best retail politicians ever, with a public mask that is dripping in working class values, but with a brain that is one of the most intellectual of all presidents.
This whole election in November is going to come down to those blue-collar voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. They tend to vote conservative over bullshit issues like "Obama will take away your guns" or "Obama likes gays", or "Obama isn't very religious and his pastor is a weirdo". That stuff unfortunately sticks with these people, just look at 2004. The working class voters who stuck with Bush twice have nothing to show for it but tripled gas prices and more federal employees now working to evict these people than to work out their mortgages.