June 05, 2004
Class Warfare
You have to admire the Republican Party’s flexibility. No matter what kind of person the Democrats nominate as their presidential candidate, that kind of person is bad. Hardscrabble background in Arkansas? No class. Wealthy Bostonian? Aristocrat who thinks his you-know-what doesn’t stink. This flexibility, which lesser individuals might call hypocrisy, may have reached a new extreme with a little game on the GOP website called Kerryopoly.
If you don't want to waste a couple of minutes of your life playing Kerryopoly, the take-home lesson is that John Kerry is an extremely wealthy man who has a lot of nice stuff that you and I can't afford. The game very explicitly points out that someone who makes $40,000 a year can't afford a house that costs $3.7 million dollars. What kind of moron do they suppose is playing Kerryopoly? (Besides thoughtful critics like you and I.)
The hypocrisy here is so rank I feel almost silly pointing it out. One of the deepest held beliefs of the GOP is that wealth is a sign of achievement and virtue. If you have money, either you or your ancestors worked very hard to get it. Anyone who begrudges a wealthy person their wealth is trying to wage class warfare, which we all know is socialistic and un-American.
Wealthy Democrats, of course, are an exception. They're stuck up a$%holes.
A more subtle, and hence more effective, version of this line of attack is the Blue State myth. The Blue States, we have all heard, are full of brie munching elitists who don't work for a living. It shows the true power of the Republican Party that an image so divorced from reality could be so widely accepted. In fact, Democrats make less money than Republicans.
The only way you can sell a story as preposterous as the Blue State Myth is to come up with plausible-sounding anecdotes. David Brooks, for example, claims that people in Blue States don't know what soybeans look like. I don't know if anyone has done a national study of ability to recognize soybeans, but you can check where they are grown. As it turns out, the top three soybean producing states are Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota. All went for Gore. (This was first pointed out in an article in Harper's. Can't recall the author.) The top agricultural state, California, is on the Left Coast. How about manufacturing? Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania went for Gore.
In the final analysis, Kerryopoly suggests a certain desperation. The GOP is paying untold operatives to probe Kerry's weak spots, and they have to settle for the brute fact that he has a lot of dough. How pathetic.
Posted by Woody Mena at June 5, 2004 10:59 AMThe author in Harper’s was Thomas Frank.
Posted by: Woody Mena at June 5, 2004 12:35 PMI find this attempt at Kerry bashing particularly amusing given that the Bush family has lots and lots of money going back generations. Most of Kerry’s “wealth” is money his wife inherited from her first husband, the late GOP Senator John Heinz. So basically, what the RNC is saying is that wealth is good in Republican hands but evil once it gets into the hands of a Democrat…
Posted by: blipsman at June 5, 2004 03:58 PMI am anxious for someone to create BUSHOLOPOLIS in which individuals can go around the board and see how they will fare financially with: 1.OUTSOURCING OF THEIR JOBS
2.TAX BREAKS FOR THE WEALTHY
Since John Kerry never earned ANY of his wealth, he married well (both times)I don’t see any hypocricy, he is trying to sell himself as a man of the people and he isn’t.
[i]The Blue States, we have all heard, are full of brie munching elitists who don’t work for a living.[/i]
I would hardly say the “Blue States” are filled with brie eating elitists, but they are filled with people who don’t work for a living, in fact they tend to be filled with people who don’t want to work, period.
Talk about pathetic, how can Bush be losing so many points in the polls and JfK still not be in a decisive lead?
Posted by: Ynot at June 5, 2004 10:59 PMwould hardly say the “Blue States” are filled with brie eating elitists, but they are filled with people who don’t work for a living, in fact they tend to be filled with people who don’t want to work, period.
You know I think you have a point there. Down here in Arkansas, everyone is hard working and productive. You never see anyone goofing around, drinking, and fishing when they could be out improving the world.
If you look at New York, on the other hand, all those people who died in the World Trade Center were probably playing Windows Solitaire when the planes attacked. Same thing in California. They just sit on their ass all day and wait for the semiconductors to design themselves.
Yessiree, I’m proud to live in a Red State were everyone is industrious. If it weren’t for us Arkansans and our fellow overachievers in Louisiana and Mississippi, this country would grind to a halt.
Posted by: Woody Mena at June 5, 2004 11:22 PMhow can Bush be losing so many points in the polls and JfK still not be in a decisive lead?
Because the two poll results are unrelated. Swing voters have decided they’re unhappy with Bush, but haven’t yet decided if they want to take a chance on Kerry.
> they are filled with people who don’t work for
> a living, in fact they tend to be filled with
> people who don’t want to work, period.
My impression is that many of the hardest working, most ambitious, and most entrepreneurial people in the USA live in the so-called “blue states”. Ever hear of Silicon Valley? Wall Street? Come on!
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at June 6, 2004 12:40 PMIs it possible that the Bush campaign may actually spend upwards of $180 million on distorted attack ads, similar in style to Woody’s example, and lose this election? Well, here is a curious item I noticed of late.
Following the administration’s full court media press to trumpet the new job figures on Friday, CNN’s Lou Dobbs did this Quick Vote:
Are you satisfied with the pace of job growth in the U.S.?
(results as of 6pm, 6/6)
YES 8% 356 votes
NO 92% 4131 votes
Posted by: Bert M. Caradine at June 6, 2004 07:35 PMBert,
There are a lot of reputable polls that suggest that Bush is in trouble, but that one doesn’t mean jack. The problem is that people called in on their own volition. Polls like this tend to bring out different, usually more negative attitudes. Think about it: Would you be more likely to call in if you were sitting pretty with a nice job, or you were PO’ed because you couldn’t find one?
Polls like this are usually labeled “unscientific”. They should really say, “Don’t even waste thirty seconds of your life looking at this so-called poll.”
Posted by: Woody Mena at June 7, 2004 11:53 AMGee, thanks Woody,
But, hey! I paid for this microphone! Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re right, but let me try another spin.
Would it be significant that there were not enough ‘freepers’ in cyberville, just as motivated to defend Bush that would, at least, vote to make it close or competitive?
Posted by: Bert M. Caradine at June 8, 2004 12:08 AMHmmm.. I wonder if over a million jobs created in the last ninety days really is that deeply unsatisfying to most Americans. I smell a bunch of Kerry staffers with speed-dial on this one.
Posted by: Martin at June 8, 2004 01:18 AMMartin, Clinton created more than 22 million new jobs. This one is still trying to dig himself out of a hole.
When Bush can come up with an accomplishments list like this, then come back and talk to me.
Posted by: American Pundit at June 8, 2004 09:48 AMBert and Martin raise another problem with these polls, that people purposely try to manipulate them to help “their” side. Pretty silly all around.
Posted by: Woody Mena at June 8, 2004 10:03 AMBert and Martin point out another problem, that people intentionally manipulate these polls to help “their” side. Silly all around.
Back in the real world, or some approximation of it, the latest Gallup poll shows Kerry beating Bush by 6%. (With or without Nader!)
Another Gallup poll shows the country about evenly split between people who think that the economy is getting better (47%) and people who think it is getting worse (45%).
