LITTWIN IN INDIANA: Class issues brew in arugula vs. beer
By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published May 4, 2008 at 10:33 p.m.
Updated May 5, 2008 at 8:56 a.m.
Joe Raedle © Getty Images
Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., a supporter, order ice cream at a Dairy Queen in South Bend, Ind. on Sunday. Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., are battling to win the state's primary on Tuesday in their hotly contested race for the party's nomination.
INDIANAPOLIS — A funny thing happened on the way to the Democratic nomination. . . .
Somehow, as we near the end of the primary campaign, the much-discussed red-blue divide in this country has morphed into a somewhat more visually challenging blue-blue divide.
There's no mystery here. The critical vote Tuesday in Indiana - and in North Carolina, too - is what some call the Bubba vote, the white working-class male vote, the Reagan Democrat vote.
But what's really strange - if you allow yourself to think about this - is that Hillary Clinton, going for a lighter shade of blue, is winning that vote.
Hillary Clinton - yes, that Hillary Clinton, the same Hillary Clinton that Rush Limbaugh once said could be part of a "feminazi dream ticket" - has become the so-called "values" candidate in this Democratic race. That is, if it's a value that you supposedly once shot ducks in Pennsylvania or gulped down a shot and a beer.
I watched Clinton on Sunday morning on This Week with George Stephanopoulos doing a full values-filled hour. She said, for example, she didn't trust "economists" in making, well, an economic decision on a gas-tax holiday. That would be, I guess, the not-listening-to-experts value. And, meanwhile, she also struck out against "government power" and "elite opinion" - citing the sure-to-win-any-election, anti- elitist value.
If you put aside the fact that Clinton pronounced all the words correctly, you'd swear you were listening to George W. Bush.
Barack Obama is the target here, of course. Maybe you saw the Newsweek cover showing the arugula vs. beer smackdown. Arugula stands in for Obama - who once asked Iowa farmers if they had seen the price of arugula in Whole Foods - and beer, I guess, stands in for everyone who doesn't eat arugula or shop at Whole Foods or ever taught law at the University of Chicago or ever hung out with former '60s radicals.
Of course, it's too easy - well, almost too easy - to point out that Clinton probably eats arugula, probably has the Secret Service stop by the Whole Foods for her, is a Yale Law graduate who taught law herself, and who, back in the day, once helped monitor a Black Panther trial to help ensure the defendants' rights were protected. Or that she's a policy wonk whose health care plan was doomed, at least in part, by reliance on, uh, elite opinion. And it's surely too easy to note that if anyone knows about being caricatured as an out-of-touch, elitist left-winger, it's Hillary Rodham Clinton.
But this isn't about who's more liberal or who eats better. This is, the pundits all tell us, about who you'd rather have a beer with - and not about with whom you'd rather share your balsamic vinaigrette.
Here's the Obama caricature, not including the nasty right-wing-radio use of Obama's middle name - stuck with nutty (racist) pastor, bad bowler, arugula eater, elitist, beer sipper, non-flag-pin-wearer, out of touch, big talker, little doer, orders orange juice when a waitress asks if he wants coffee (and you just know he likes it full pulp). And, oh, his wife isn't sufficiently proud of America. I'm sure I've left out some stuff, but all I can say is it's no wonder that John Kerry is supporting this guy.
The subtext here is partly about race, and it's partly about class - and it's probably mostly about where the two intersect.
Of course, in real life, Obama is a self-made person who has reached heights that no one could have imagined. And he started his career working with working people, as a $12,000-a-year community organizer in Chicago. This is how he puts it in a two-minute TV ad that's running in Indiana and North Carolina: "Politics didn't lead me to working people. Working people led me to politics."
On the other hand, it wasn't chance that led him to an American Legion bar the other day where he ordered a Bud. And he says Clinton will do anything to get elected.
As I wrote the other day, what surprises me is how freely people are willing to talk about race as an issue in the campaign. In the Pennsylvania exit polls, about one voter in seven said that race was a key issue. And, of course, Wright has taken race to another level.
In fact, the big Sunday morning show was supposed to be Meet the Press, on which Tim Russert had a full hour with Obama. And you knew that Wright would be the focus of discussion.
And yet, the show made absolutely no news, which may have to do with the fact that Russert failed to ask Obama whether Wright loved America as much as he did.
Still, it took 18 minutes to get past the issue. "When you are in national politics, it is always good to pull the Band-Aid off quick," Obama said, but, of course, he hadn't. He said he wouldn't disown Wright, and then he did. In the end, he had no choice after Wright went on his revenge tour, which Obama said was pouring "gasoline on the fire."
"What really changed," Obama told Russert, "was a sense that he was going to double down on the statements that he had made before."
He doubled the bet. Obama called. We'll see who wins.
Meanwhile, both candidates were asked about the gas-tax holiday, which has become the latest defining issue in the campaign - and a rare policy difference. Clinton, following John McCain, would call a summer holiday on an 18.4 cents per gallon federal tax.
When Stephanopoulos pointed out that no one seems to be able to find a single economist who thinks this is a good idea, that's when Clinton pulled out the anti-elitism stops.
"I'm not going to put my lot in with economists," she said. "I think we've been for the last seven years seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion basically behind policies that haven't worked well for the middle class and hard-working Americans."
It was early on a Sunday - not my best time - and so I checked the transcript to be sure that's what she said. For the record, it was.
Both candidates also got into Clinton's comment - lost in the Wright debacle - that she would "obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. It's the kind of talk that leads that one supporter to praise her, uh, testicular fortitude. (James Carville, by the way, took that notion even further, but I don't know if we can say it in a family newspaper.)
Clinton said she had no regrets about her comments, which Obama compared to a Bush comment. I'm sure she doesn't. Some polls show her slightly ahead in Indiana and closing in North Carolina. And, when you watch her these days, you just know that she thinks she can pull off the impossible - or at least the very unlikely - and still win the nomination.
She joked with the audience and got a laugh when she said of Rush Limbaugh, "He's always had a crush on me."
Obama didn't joke on Meet the Press. And he wasn't joking when he made what he called his closing argument Saturday on a windy Indianapolis day - saying "the only way a black guy named Barack Obama who was born in Hawaii . . . can win this race (is) if you decide that you've had enough of the way things are, if you decide that this election is bigger than flag pins and sniper fire and the comments of a former pastor."
I checked the transcript there, too. And no, he didn't say anything about arugula.
littwinm@RockyMountainNews.com
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May 5, 2008
9:11 a.m.
Suggest removal
Romulus writes:
Hey Sasquatch, how come we don't hear the right-wingers repeating McCain's middle name every five minutes? Do we even know what it is? What accounts for this strange obsession with Obama's middle name? Could it be a guilt-by-associaton thing? Nah, when have Republicans ever stooped to that level of gutter politics?
May 5, 2008
9:17 a.m.
Suggest removal
Spencer writes:
McCain's middle name is "Same". John Same McCain, if you can stand 4 more years of the same failed policies, then vote for him.
May 5, 2008
9:47 a.m.
Suggest removal
ClimbingNurse writes:
I moved here from DC 3 years ago and this is the best article I've read in a CO newspaper in that time. Thanks! And for the record, I'd much rather have a bottle of microbrew with Obama than Clinton. I don't wanna have Bud with anyone, but that's probably because I'm a Boulder/Washington Liberal Elitist. C'est la vie...
May 5, 2008
10:54 a.m.
Suggest removal
JYP3500 writes:
Mike, you are getting a little testy about defending Barack. As much as you want to deny it, Jeremiah Wright is a boat anchor around the Obamas' necks the size of the Titanic. And the super delegates know it.
Your comment about "Obama is a self-made person who has reached heights that no one could have imagined" is a bit overstated. His political success was a result of linking himself with Wright, Ayers, and the Chicago/Daley political machine.
May 5, 2008
11:28 a.m.
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nmbronco1 writes:
"John McCain in a flightsuit"? - better yet, how about McCain taking some of his old age meds. You can bet there are skeletons in McCain's closet that will be falling out soon.
Nice article, Littwin! It has been amazing to see how the mainstream media have bit hook, line, and sinker Hillary Clinton's supposedly "folky"ness when in fact she is the true elistist and multi-millionaire. Why hasn't more been made of her comments on Bill O'Reilly's crappy show where she brags about how good it is to be a millionaire just like uber-rightwinger O'Reilly?
May 5, 2008
11:47 a.m.
Suggest removal
freethinker07 writes:
The Republican party came apart into the conservative wing and the big business wing. McCain, Cheney, and Bush are big business. Hagee is conservative.
The Democrats have come apart also into "effete intellectual snobs" (to quote Spiro Agnew), and working class populists.
Of course,for violent nutcases on the right are the militia groups and on the left is Recreate 68.
May 5, 2008
11:58 a.m.
Suggest removal
GetaReal writes:
Hey Romulus and forward69,
Go Ahead, use McCain's middle name, use it all you want, do all the damage you can with it.
Oh how I love it so, hippies eating hippies. So much for "all we need is love".
The biggest laugh of all is that this is an accurate picture of the Democratic primaries. And, oh my god, the best you can do is scream hatred about McCain and then attacks Bush/Cheney (who ain't running, but I am sure you never noticed). You guys are intellectually incapable of having thoughtful conversation about a specific topic. So typical of the experientially challenged
Stupid sophmorish name there "backward".
May 5, 2008
12:04 p.m.
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Dinty writes:
I believe the first post had to do with the quote "nasty right-wing-radio use of Obama's middle name". The obvious point is why is that considered nasty. Instead of addressing the question, all you Libs took off on McCain. Exactly how does that logic work?
May 5, 2008
12:38 p.m.
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MaxInEnglewood writes:
GetaReal,
Its FROward69, not FORward69. Froward is a "big word" meaning hard to tame, or not easily managed. Just an FYI for the next time you want to put Froward69 in their place. (sarcasm of course)
May 5, 2008
1:28 p.m.
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Spencer writes:
Wasn't Obama actually speaking with arugula farmers?
May 5, 2008
1:50 p.m.
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mike_littwin writes:
I don't think it was arugula that was the problem as much as talking about shopping for arugula at Whole Foods. In my trips through rural Iowa, I didn't see many Whole Foods stores.
May 5, 2008
3:24 p.m.
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GetaReal writes:
Thanks Max,
You are correct of course, as I actually misread the nick. But anything with 69 on the end is sophomoric and stupid and is either a sign of a juvenile thought process or someone with a a severe mental disorder.
To Froward: Of course they "are courting the (uneducated)", a better word would have been ignorant. The ignorant are the only people politicians can reach with dogmatic rhetoric because anyone who has bothered to educate themselves of the actual facts can not be swayed by slick, soothing verbalizations.
It is not about the person, it is about the party.
If one believes they are incapable of taking care of themselves, and sees the need for Big Brother to protect them from things they can neither understand nor control then may I suggest you go Democrat.
If on the other hand one believes that personal honesty, integrity and responsibility equips one with the tools to take care of themselves without government interference then the Republicans are for you.
American politics ain't perfect to be sure but, it is better than living under the boot heel of Stalin.
May 5, 2008
3:25 p.m.
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Spencer writes:
oh, good point. I like your columns, very funny.