The Tactic

What the plagiarists--Senator Obama and Biden--have been doing with their new "John-McCain-Is-Out-Of-Touch!" schtick is tearing a page out of a campaign playbook that worked, particularly from (Man From) Hope and (It's-Time-To) Change (i.e. after 12 years of Reagan/Bush 41) Bill Clinton, who succesfully used the "Out-of-Touch" line against Bush 41 in '92.

That was done by pointing stuff out that the 12-year veep and president was unaccustomed to vis-a-vis novel, private sector technologies that the average Joe & Jane presumably we're not, like the price of milk & eggs at a supermarket and the existence of price scanners.

"Bush doesn't know the price of a dozen eggs! He's never seen a price scanner! No wonder we're in The Worse Economy Since The Great Depression! HE'S OUT OF TOUCH!"

Of course, by then, what was a shallow recession had already begun to recover, and one certainly can't blame any president who was catered to by Executive Office Building and White House chefs for 12 years to not be on top of supemarket prices and technologies.

To hold 41's ignorance of them against him after being a vice president for 8 years and a president for 4 was absurd.

But it worked to some extent.

(note: Clinton unabashedly confessed that he "had to learn how to use an ATM machine" after eight years as president--even when ATM machines were around for Bush 41's presidency, a testament to the longevity of Clinton's insularity from the mainstream--but the Clinton-loving MSM that time cooed in endearment).

And, of course, back in the day when names--middle or otherwise-- were supposedly very relevant (i.e. when a Republican had an exploitable one), lotsa lols were shared at the expense of Vice President Danforth Quayle, whose Christian name was proof of his rich WASP male vintage, i.e. he was "Out-Of-Touch."

(Warning: To ponder Juliet's "What's-In-A-Name?" reverie and exploit it today is out of bounds, however.)

Meanwhile, liberal Ivy League lawyer Bill Clinton "felt our pain"--as Ivy League lawyer Obama regularly assures us he feels, also, though very careful not to use that particular phrasing.

Implicitly, Bush 41-- and now McCain-- do not, cannot, because, unlike the Democrats, presumably, they are not "one of us."

However, to have liberal Democrats call conservative Republicans (however chimeric) "Out-of-Touch" and think they can get away with it is an easier ruse to pull off when hailing from southern, backwoods Arkansas and Tenessee than it is coming from a state like Massachusetts, or Michigan, or Delaware, for that matter, northern liberals having poor electoral track records on the national stage.

Nevertheless, that's precisely the strategem the Obama campaign has lifted and is now trying to apply to John McCain.

It is not in reaction to McCain actually having demonstrated rarefied behavior that could legitimately be interpreted to indicate an unacceptable, Antoinettesque elitism, but was pre-meditated and was waiting for the slightest opportunity to trigger an onslaught of readied material-- as role-modeled from the succesful 1992 campaign.

And so, much like Bush 41's unfamiliarty with supermarkets--and Danforth's Christian name-- caused a pouncing, cavalcading attack on their Everyman credentials, so, too, did McCain's uncertainty about the number of residences he and his wife owned--particularly in an economy with record foreclosures-- unleash the prepared charges of him being "out-of-touch," now the current, Democrat theme of the attacks, as the unleashed Biden immediately engaged in.

McCain, he said, would have to “figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at” concerning his economic situation.

i.e. He's "Out-of-Touch" with Joe & Jane America.

As in '92, the shameless nerve of it is that the strategem is not so much one of targeting a slippage of privileged wealth and lifestyle and hyperbolically presenting it as evidence of some sort of monarchical (i.e. un-American) character--though that's the process--but more a projection meant to deflect attention away from the far more conceited, elitist attitudes and lifestyles--and contempt for Gun & Bible "clingers"-- of the Left, a stigma that is well-earned.

So Obama/Biden--like Clinton/Gore--are projecting hypocrites, with the former plagiarizing it as a campaign tactic from the latter to boot.

Clinton's vice president was Gore. If there was ever an arrogant, elitist, and priveleged politician who is out-of-touch with the commoner, it's him.

But like Clinton's "Aw shucks" Arkansas pedigree, and with Gore's own roots in southern Tennessee, it was easy for unknown quantities to introduce themselves to the nation as good-ol'-boys, if only by regional association.

But politicians with incontrovertibly liberal records and coming from northern states like Michigan and Delaware--like Kerry from Massachusetts--are going to have a tougher time with the charade.