Same old, same old

The GOP strategy couldn't be clearer.  They're going straight for working class voters--even more specifically, working class voters in Ohio, the Ohio valley, and Pennsylvania--and they're going to do it by posing as ordinary citizens against the "elites." 

This is the same strategy they used in 2004, and one that, really, goes back at least to Nixon.  If you've read Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, you'll remember that, at Whittier College, Nixon's alma mater, there was a group called the Franklins.  The Franklins were the "elite" of Whittier, the "upper crust" of the student world. 

Nixon formed a rival organization called the "Orthogonians."  (The word means "at a right angle.")   Orthogonians were, basically, the dorks and geeks.  But since there are more dorks than kewl kidz in the world, the Orthogonians wound up running everything.

Their tactic will obviously include the usual package of derision and scorn.  "How dare those elitist Democrats look down their Ivy League noses at us God-fearing, salt-of-the-earth paragons of good old American virtue.  They're not better than us!  We're better than them!"

To a degree, this will work.  That is, it will rally the people who like that sort of thing, but whether or not it will be enough is questionable.  Republicans tend to go a bit overboard on the piety, which turns off about as many people as it energizes. 

Still, the Democrats need to take this threat seriously, which we probably won't because, when it comes to the imagery and symbols of the "culture war," Democrats are clueless.  They see themselves as noble defenders of the little guy and don't get that other people don't necessarily get that. 

How we constantly let ourselves get played this way is beyond me.  Did anybody look goofier than John Kerry in his "hunting outfit"?  He might as well have put a sign on his head that said, "I've never done this before, but I want to show people that a Harvard guy like me can be a regular guy-type guy."

Comments

[G. Struessel]

Hey John, really enjoy your blog, and saw you at the convention last week in Denver, MSNBC I believe, so if you were trying to hide, your cover was blown. On this topic though, I have been given a book titled, "Whats the Matter With Kansas" and speaks about how the working class and working poor have been led to believe that if the richest AMericans get richer, even on their labor, that somehow they benefit; thus they vote Republican even when their real interests are not anywhere in the Conservative platform. read the introduction online at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220552379&sr=8-1

Thanks for you blogging
g

[John Petty]

Thanks for the kind words. I have read that fine book, and have recommended it to others.

There's one thing I don't like about it, though, and this is a big one. Frank assumes voters are pretty stupid in that they can't recognize their own interests. I don't know about that.