be afraid

[rm]

I ranted about why on earth do people have this desire for the president to be "a regular guy"

This being Gather, some people replied with what I considered pretty terrifying responses.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977219392

Comments

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

It burns.

I'm voting for zombies this year. Zombies could start the apocalypse in a much better way.

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Hm. You know, a candidate's wealth and (formal) education have honestly never been my concern, and neither has his or her relatability (speaking ability, however ...). I tend to look more at his or her political record, and the intelligence s/he demonstrates in power - and of course, his/her ability to balance justice with mercy. I actually prefer it if s/he's a little unrelatable - FDR had the right idea about keeping a distance between a leader and his/her people.

Also, I really think that the national obsession with candidates being "regular guys" goes back very, very far. To the Jackson administration certainly, and definitely to the race between William Henry Harrison and Martin van Buren. Harrison won the election largely because his entourage portrayed him as having grown up in a log cabin and van Buren as being an aristocrat - although the opposite was in fact true (van Buren's height had a lot to do with it, too - I believe he is one of, if not our shortest presidents).

Sorry if you know all of this already. I just am rather fascinated by our earliest presidents in particular. And I always rather liked van Buren.

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Also kind of want to give your second commenter Machiavelli's complete works for a late Christmas present.

(Haha I almost typed president instead of present thar.)

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

I've pointed this out several times, but not lately (because I've become Bush-weary). Every year, a select few high school students from around the country are chosen to represent their states, go to Washington, visit the White House, etc. It's very competitive. Any one of them is more articulate, intelligent, and socially/politically/historically/culturally aware than the guy who is sitting in the big chair. It makes me ill.

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Who, if you care to remember, ran on the general notion that he WAS "a regular guy." And people were dumb enough to fall for that shit.

Agggghhhh!

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

This is true, and it's disheartening and disgusting.

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

The average person is just so fucking naive!

*pulls hair out*

ALL politics is hand-shaking, back-rubbing and deal-making and all our major publicly elected leaders have elitist backgrounds of some sort or they wouldn't be where they are and able to massage the system in support of their constituents/beliefs/high-fallutin' morals, etc.

I'd love to see how many voters out there would actually support a presidential candidate with a markedly different background than that of the average politico elite (think high-school educated, single mother who lives in an urban area and has to take public transportation to work because she has never been able to afford a car).

And then I wonder which political party would throw its support behind such a candidate, and just how thrilled political action committees would be at this prospect. Ugh!

[drfardook.livejournal.com]

I take it more as a sign that when a voter says he wants someone the present to be 'a regular guy' that they want them to share their cultural values more than be of the same economic class.

I'm not sure the average voter is going to respond to Romney's fortune (which is reported to be just south of $250 million) more than they're going to respond to his religion, turnaround on social issues to appeal to socially conservative voters, and deliberate personal appearance. Similarly Bush is seen as a "regular guy" despite being a poster child for nepotism of every shape and form.

This may be a result of years of Republican "class warfare" rhetoric where you weren't allowed to talk about much less criticize the accumulation of personal wealth.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I blame the mainstream media.

No, seriously. Once upon a time, our papers of record reported on politics in such a way that you couldn't help understanding some part of what a president's job actually entailed. You knew what an issue was; you knew something about the competing policy considerations; you had some reason to think that brains were important to handle the job.

Now we have what Atrios calls "The Village," a cadre of elite political reporters tied intimately to the permanent political class. They're the ones who claim that Americans want a "regular guy" to be president, and they do all in their power to make that true. They report on politics as though it were a high-school popularity contest; their metamessage is that the minutiae of haircuts and regular-guy-ness are the important questions when selecting a president. If you're not fascinated by policy, enough to actively seek more thorough information out for yourself, that's all you'll know, and these non-explicit social messages are powerful things.

If we could eliminate a few hundred sinecured pundits, I bet you'd be amazed at the difference we'd see in just a couple of years. MoDo and Tweety and David Broder aren't America; they just want us to think they are, and have great big megaphones they can use to convince us.

[phaenix-ash.livejournal.com]

I personally don't need a specifically intelligent president, just one who has a lot of common sense, and has a good speach writer

Oh dear.

Of courses I want a President who is more intelligent than me. And yes, that probably does boil down to someone better educated and wealthier because while he knows how to balance a check book the fact that he isn't agonizing over paying the heat or having gas to get to work means he has been able to focus exclusively on his education and career. The people who don't get that are the same that think they somehow "deserve" a big screen T.V.

That being said, I agree with a lot of what x tabber says. I'd like a leader who knows the price of milk and gas and understands very clearly the state of the every man. Of course, I also want to believe his second point ("really smart, talented people get ahead, no matter what their obstacles.") But mostly I want someone to hold the office who possesses a real heart and who has values that no politician could ever have. While we're dreaming I'd actually like to see an honest to goodness hero in the White House, a real leader, not a puppet CEO that exists solely to read speaches [sic].

[christinenorris.livejournal.com]

I don't think they want him to be 'a regular guy' so much as 'not a rich white dude'.

They want someone who won't take his own opinion too highly, that has the ability to listen to others and weigh their concerns in making his policies.

Not a dictator-wannabe who does whatever the hell he wants with no thought to the people who put him in his office. Someone who will make people's lives better, instead of working for Corporate America, making the average person's life shite in a handbag.

JMO.

[sociallyawkrd.livejournal.com]

This is exactly it for me. I am tired of rich white dudes who struggle to understand the middle - lower class.

I also for the record want a president who represents the entire constituency, not just those who voted for him. I want him to surround himself with a cabinet of varying opinions, genders, races, sexual preferences and class (and I think it is even more important for the cabinet to by highly intelligent). I want him to listen to people and not to corporations.

I don't want to have a beer with him, I just want him to have a concept of what it is like to work your ass off to put yourself through college and not have a phone or car. I want him to understand that sometimes you are doing the best you can and still struggle and it isn't being lazy.

Mostly I think that means I don't want neo-con as a president though.

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Words and I aren't doing well together today, but you've done a great job of summing up my feelings on the matter.

:o)

[lawnrrd]

I want the President to be a regular guy because I don't want to run the risk that the Chinese or Nigerians or Paraguayans or whoever will put mind-control drugs in his Metamucil.

[hiddenshallows.livejournal.com]

It is a good question, but sadly I have to agree with with your commenters who went down the route of the public's need for ego-appeasement. Often people are intimidated by those more intelligent by themselves, and fear leads to all kinds of wonderous beliefs and social standards.

Well, that's my (only one degree-educated) thought, anyway ;)

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

This has been chasing around in my head since you posted it. What occurred to me this morning was that it seems to me you and the people you wonder about are similar. You want someone very intelligent, educated, worldly, progressive. Doesn't that simply suggest an uber-you? And if that's the case, why wouldn't everyone else think the same? Wanting some grand version of themselves as president?

[asa-dachi.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for the rest of the masses, but here's my take.

I want the President to be very intelligent. I want the President to be well-educated - in all manners of possible education, both academic and experiential.

In addition to not wanting a moron for President, I also don't want a President who is unable to be comfortable in 'my world' because it seems to me that a person who can't be comfortable in 'my world' also won't understand 'my circumstances' and the kinds of things that affect me when they are manipulated by and attended to in the halls of Washington, D.C.

To put it another way, if s/he can't have a beer with me s/he probably won't understand why I don't think we should put emissions and fuel efficiency requirements in place for collector cars and racecars. S/He probably won't understand why my lifestyle requires more space than a 10-person-per-acre population density will allow. The real issues that affect me on a daily basis may not be easily understood by someone who has never held a 'joe job', has never been 'down-sized', has never seen their father out of work for 10 months...

Monarchs were some of the most highly educated people in the world. And yet monarchy, as a system of government, seems to have pretty much demonstrated an inability to meet the needs of the people.

-asa