Today, my “Stake President of the United States” post is featured on the front page of evangelicalsformitt.org. I love that site, and I even quoted them here long, long ago. I feel as if I have arrived! Certainly an exponentially large number of new readers have arrived, so maybe I ought to keep updating this thing if I want them to stick around. (Prior to this, my most popular post was a scathing expose of the secret organization known as the Order of the Arrow. I wonder if all Mitt supporters are as passionate on that subject as I am.)
You newbies may not know this, but longtime readers of this blog will remember that I’m a Bruce-o-phile, so when Jimmy Fallon had Bruce Springsteen on his show the other night and Bruce performed his long-forgotten gem “The E Street Shuffle,” I was in heaven. Not so, however, when he launched into “Death to My Hometown,” an Occupy Wall Street-y musical screed.
The song doesn’t mention Mitt or anyone else by name, but as Springsteen wails about the “robber barons” and “greedy thieves” whose blatantly capitalistic, 1% wickedness apparently murdered Asbury Park, New Jersey, you can bet that his enemies list would likely include everyone who has ever appeared on the Bain Capital employee roster.
I thought of this as, on the eve of Super Tuesday, I lamented that if Mitt were a Presbyterian, he’d have sewn up the nomination weeks ago. Some of my more liberal friends disagreed and cited the standard trope that Mitt’s real problem is his richness, his moneyed aloofness, his 1% out-of-touchness. Now, I like to think that my post about Mitt’s church responsibilities indicates that his ecclesiastical assignments put him squarely in touch with real people and didn’t give him the requisite time or license to sit around at the country club and sip chardonnay, but that perception is there, and it’s a hard one to shake.
In previous elections, that issue has been framed by the following question: which candidate would you most want to have a beer with?
In 2000, W. blew away Al Gore on alcoholic compatibility. In 2004, 57% of respondents picked Bush again as their beer buddy over the patrician, to-the-manor-born John Kerry. In 2008, at the beginning of the primary season, the question was asked about all candidates in both parties. The Washington Post reported the results as follows:
[S]o far, Barack Obama is winning the beer vote overall with 13 percent vote, followed closely by Rudy Giuliani at 12 percent. John McCain and Ron Paul are tied at 10 percent, followed by John Edwards and Fred Thompson at 8 percent.
Seven percent of respondents chose Mike Huckabee — a teetotaler, mind you — as the presidential candidate they’d most like to have a beer with. Six percent picked Hillary Rodham Clinton, and 5 percent each chose Dennis Kucinich (another candidate who doesn’t drink) and Mitt Romney, a Mormon who, of course, doesn’t drink either.
So Romney ties Kucinich. Ouch. Now I don’t drink for the same Mormon reason Mitt doesn’t, but I’d probably be looking to down something strong enough to kill a few brain cells after having to spend more than fifteen minutes with Dennis Kucinich. No, if I had to go out for a night of boozing with someone, I’d probably pick someone like – well, like Bruce Springsteen, for instance.
I mean, look at Bruce! He’s out there every night beating up on the 1%, sticking it to the man! He’s got a soul patch and everything! He’s definitely one of us. I can think of no one I’d rather slam back a few tall, cold ones with as we both slowly descend into a drunken stupor and then wake up in a dumpster twelve hours later with some kid with an accent playing with my feet.
No way I could do that with Mitt. He’s got a net worth of $200 million, for criminey’s sake. So out of touch! How can I relate to someone like that? Mitt’s worth as much as some big time celebrity – someone like – well, like Bruce Springsteen. (Saw that one coming, didn’t you?)
Now it’s not surprising to me that so many on the left excoriate Mitt’s wealth but excuse their own. That kind of Springsteenian, Streisandian, Roseanne Barr-ian hypocrisy has long been standard operating procedure. What’s surprising to me is how many on the right have picked up the “lets-have-a-beer” ball and run with it. We conservatives are the ones who think wealth indicates hard work and competence and should be rewarded, not demonized.
So why should we want a president that we can easily imagine inebriated?
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