Presidential candidates appeal to everyman image

By WILLIAM MARCH
Media General News Service

Published: October 23, 2008

TAMPA - Sherrie Candelaria, a PTA president and mother of five from Wesley Chapel, is dead set on voting for Sarah Palin, a former PTA president and mother of five from Alaska.

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Palin’s a hockey mom; Candelaria, a volleyball mom.

“She even has the same anniversary date,“ Candelaria said.

The similarities aren’t the only reason Candelaria likes the McCain/Palin ticket, but they help.

“You can relate to that type of person,“ she said. “It’s almost like your best friend next door.“

But should your best friend next door be president?

It’s common for candidates for president to proclaim that they’re ordinary people who think just like us, but should extraordinary responsibilities be borne by an ordinary person?

In fact, political experts say, voters demand from presidential candidates something that seems impossible: An uncommon person who talks, acts and assures us that he or she is, in fact, common.

“There are many contradictions in politics,“ said Texas A&M University political scientist George Edwards, who has long studied and researched the history of the presidency. “This is one of them.“

In Palin, America is seeing another in a long line of candidates for the White House who assert the superiority of the ordinary.

“You know what? It’s time that normal Joe Six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency,“ Palin told conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt last month.

Palin said her intent to provide that representation has “ticked off” elitists and Washington insiders who run the government, and don’t want to see it “put back on the side of the people, of Joe Six-pack, like me.“

However, Edwards noted, understanding ordinary people’s problems doesn’t necessarily mean being capable of solving them.

“Just because I can feel your pain,“ he said, “doesn’t make me a superb physician.“

Obama campaign state director Steve Schale said in a time of crisis, voters will look for more than a Joe Six-pack appeal. “This is a ‘fundamentals’ election, not a ‘who-do-you-want-to-have-a-beer-with’ election,“ he said.

Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist who studies the presidency at the University of Texas, said Americans want unusually capable, intelligent people for the nation’s highest office, but they’re conflicted about that desire.

“We have kind of an anti-intellectual tradition in American life,“ and a tradition of populism that usually springs from a sense of economic injustice, Buchanan said. “Voters want some betterness, but wrapped up in a package that makes you seem like ordinary folks.“

Candidates “must establish emotional rapport with voters, most of whom are ordinary people,“ Buchanan said.

The result: Although history is full of candidates claiming to be ordinary, few actually were.

President Bush, for example.

“His early appeal was that he’d be good to have a beer with; he talks sort of like I do,“ Buchanan said. “But he went to Yale and Harvard and benefitted from a privileged social and economic position at every turn of his life.“

Most experts cite Harry Truman as the closest to a truly ordinary guy to make it to the presidency. Even he wasn’t entirely ordinary, and he took an almost accidental path to the nation’s highest office.

A farmer and haberdashery owner, Truman got involved in local politics after serving in World War I, ultimately reaching the U.S. Senate. However, he didn’t start from scratch: He came from a prosperous family and had a strong war record, plus the backing of a powerful political machine.

Many, maybe even Truman, were surprised when he was picked to replace President Franklin Roosevelt’s running mate in 1944. That led to Truman’s own widely admired presidency.

By the time Roosevelt chose him, Truman had already been a senator and Washington insider for 10 years, and a county administrator for 12 years before that.

One of the most famous political appeals to ordinariness in U.S. history came not in a presidential race but a battle over a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, a job seemingly even more dependent on strong intellectual ability.

In 1970, Democrats said G. Harrold Carswell, a Tallahassee federal judge nominated by President Nixon, was chosen for political reasons and was “mediocre.“

The late Sen. Roman Hruska, R-Neb., replied, “Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they?“

“We can’t have all Brandeises, Cardozos and Frankfurters,“ he went on - a reference to three of history’s most brilliant justices.

That argument didn’t save Carswell’s nomination.