Meanwhile, back in the Cornfield," the candidates try to "Poorboy" it. Boston Globe.
Hopefuls tout their humble roots
Democrats set sights on working class vote
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff, 5/1/2003
HENNIKER, N.H. -- John Edwards is a millionaire trial lawyer and a senator, and he looked the part, smartly dressed in a suit and tie, as he wooed voters in this small college town. But Edwards wanted to talk about the other part of his life, about his father struggling to support the family as a millworker in North Carolina, with young John sweeping the mill floors to help out.
Like many candidates vying for the Democrats' 2004 presidential nomination, Edwards is emphasizing his working-class credentials at a time of economic uncertainty, much the same way Bill Clinton used his personal story to appeal to voters as he portrayed the first President Bush as out of touch with average Americans.
''People of America will have a choice of someone who comes from them,'' Edwards said. ''It's not something some Washington political consultant came up with. This is my whole life. President Bush comes from a very different place.''
Candidates typically round out their personal stories early in presidential campaigns and use those histories to distinguish themselves from other candidates. But this season's posturing goes beyond the usual Democratic appeals for the votes of the working class, and it presents a challenge for Democrats without hardscrabble stories of their own.
Clinton cast himself as ''the man from Hope,'' growing up in Hope, Ark., in the home of an alcoholic stepfather, only to become a Rhodes scholar and governor. Those class credentials made Clinton seem closer to the people who were feeling the brunt of a down economy at a time when the elder Bush was caricatured as a man of privilege who was baffled by his first encounter with a supermarket price scanner.
Former vice president Al Gore posited a choice between the ''people vs. the powerful'' in 2000. But the economy was flourishing at the time, and Gore, the wealthy son of a US senator, did not have an up-by-the-bootstraps story of his own to use against Bush.
Candidates ''are tapping into a strong sentiment about the economy right now. People want to know that candidates understand what they're going through and have solutions for it,'' said Doug Hattaway, a Boston political consultant who worked on Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. ''Bush can never say, `I feel your pain,' and mean it,'' he said.
A CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll last week found that half of the respondents felt that Bush was in touch with the problems facing ordinary Americans. But painting Bush as a man born of privilege who is disconnected from working-class America will be a more difficult task than it was in the case of his father, analysts say. ''This is the first guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth who looks like he works at the corner garage,'' said Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution.
Even Bush's detractors agree he has an uncanny ability to connect with regular Americans, with a cowboy-casual manner and direct way of speaking.
''In President Bush, [voters] see someone who speaks with great clarity and is consistent. Some of the Democrats seem to have trouble doing that right now,'' said Dan Ronayne, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
Nevertheless, Democrats are underscoring the humble sides of their stories.
Representative Richard A. Gephardt's stump speech reminds listeners that he is the son of a milkman and that his mother changed jobs so often she was left with a $42-a-month pension. Gephardt's daughter, Kate, earns so little as a teacher, the Missouri Democrat notes in his speeches, she lives at home just to make ends meet.
Bush ''doesn't get it. He's not in touch with reality'' as experienced by ordinary Americans, Gephardt told supporters in New Hampshire earlier this year.
Representative Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, said at a Children's Defense Fund event this year that he grew up in poverty, sometimes having to sleep in cars. Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, is bringing back the ''work days'' he employed as a gubernatorial candidate to soften his image as an elitist academic. Graham, a millionaire dairyman and developer, graduated from Harvard Law School and is the brother-in-law of the late Katherine Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post.
''Although he did not grow up poor, he grew up in a family where hard work was really appreciated,'' said Talbot ''Sandy'' D'Alemberte, a Florida State University law professor who suggested the work days idea to Graham during his 1977 campaign for governor. ''One of the things people did not understand about Bob was that he felt very comfortable working very hard and doing manual labor.''
Aside from working menial jobs as a youth, Edwards spent some time in subsidized housing, spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said. ''I do think it matters to a huge number of voters in America that you are in tune with and understand what their lives are like,'' Edwards said in an interview.
Edwards's autobiography impressed some of the voters who gathered to hear him at New England College last week. ''Someone who has been at the bottom and worked his way up . . . he has empathy with people,'' said John Liston of Hillsboro, adding that his own retirement income is just $4,000 a year. ''I connect with him in the sense that he grew up as I did.''
Bill Carrick, a California-based Democratic consultant, believes Bush's privileged background may hurt him if the economy remains weak.
''I think this particular president seems to many Americans to not understand how real people live and how bad economic times are for them. Whether it's fair to him or not, that's what many Americans think,'' Carrick said.
If the primary debate continues along this course, the Democratic contenders could end up sparring with one another over who is more attuned to working Americans' concerns. That could present a challenge for Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Kerry doesn't present a ''regular folks'' image as he travels the campaign trail aboard his wealthy wife's private plane, strategists in both parties noted.
''I like John as a person. But John was born with two silver spoons in his mouth. He has no concept of what happens to people on a small income,'' said Lee Lombard, a Gephardt supporter from Nashua.
Kerry's campaign manager, Jim Jordan, noted that two-thirds of US senators are millionaires, and he said wealth does not disqualify a candidate from speaking for the poor.
''The issue isn't whether you grew up poor. The American public hasn't shown any particular aversion to electing relatively wealthy presidents,'' Jordan said. ''The issue is, can you connect with the needs and worries and hopes and aspirations of average Americans?''
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