Paybacks can be a…well, you know.
John McCain should have known that the Obama team was just waiting to pounce after his “Celebrity” ad, and pounced they did after his gaffe on not knowing how many houses he owns.
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post notes how both parties try very hard to paint the other as out-of-touch with the common man. McCain and the GOP have been hitting hard to tar Obama as another elitist liberal, while Obama has started to paint McCain as a fat cat that doesn’t care about the poor or working class.
Politicians try to show how they are in line with the common person. While I would say that it is important that leaders have some sympathy and/or empathy with the average Joe, it is somewhat silly to pretend that these politicians, most of whom are well-to-do, are just like us. They aren’t. But we are willing to play along.
Does it matter that McCain has seven homes, or that Obama likes to eat arugula? No. Does it show that they are out of touch? Not really. McCain has worked on legislation like a patient’s bill of rights and Obama was a community organizer. They both have some understanding of the plight of the common person, even if they don’t live the life of a common person (whatever that is).
I think what matters more is what they have done, not what kind of car they drive or whether they get their coffee from Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts.
Two of our best Presidents, who happen to share a last name, were good at empathizing with the working person without having lived the life. Both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, cousins who were from opposing parties and philosophies, were men of wealth and yet they both had concerns about the average American.
Both campaigns will try to paint the other as a snob, that’s politics. But the true measure of the candidate is not these measures, but what they have done that shows they care and what they will do once in office.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if a pol is in the elite or not. What matters is what they do with it.