People vote for who they like

By Bill McCamley

It’s finally here… that time in an election where running mates have been chosen, money has been raised and policy has been debated. Now that we are close to the last month, most people have decided who they are going to vote for. There are only a few “swing” voters left to decide the election.

David Prior, a former governor and senator from Arkansas and a mentor of mine, once had a conversation with me after the 2002 election. After I regaled him with how Democrats could do better as a group through messaging and logistics, he said to me, “Bill, I’ve been in politics for nearly 50 years now, and you know the one thing I learned? People vote for who they like.” That was one of the most astute observations I ever heard, and smart politicians will agree. To try to get voters to like them, they then say that they are “one of us.” I wonder, if a president were truly one of us, an average American, what would they be like?

They would make $25,267 per year, though if they were female that number would be lower. They would consider themselves middle class and have an IQ of 98. They would have no college degree, but would have completed “some college.” They would likely be married, but surprisingly would not have children living with them (As of 2000 a plurality of American households, 28.7 percent, consisted of married couple with no children, while 25.5 percent of households had only single people and only 24.1 percent were made up of the typical “nuclear family”). They would most likely have been divorced at least once, and would probably come from the office-support or service industries. Does this really sound like any presidential candidate in recent memory?

Seem sketchy? Let’s try something broader. Since there are 100 senators, what would happen if they truly represented a cross-section of the American public? Some 51 would be female, 66 would be Anglo, 15 would be of Latin decent and 13 would be Black. Two would actually be bi-racial, and 18 would have been raised with a language other than English being spoken at home. Twenty-five would have a bachelor’s degree or higher, while only four would be lawyers. Eight would be veterans and 16 would have some sort of disability. Thirteen would be gay. Fifty-one would be Protestant, 24 would be Catholic, 16 would be “unaffiliated” and two would be Jewish and Mormon respectively. Six would be unemployed and three would be homeless. Only three would make above $150,000 per year.

So what is the point of this exercise? There is no way most presidents represent the “average American” (as an example we’ve only ever had one single president. James Buchanan was elected in 1856.) or that the Senate comes even remotely close. For instance, 56 senators hold law degrees. There are only 16 women senators and only one African American (Barak Obama, though he is considered bi-racial). So no matter how many times a politician does shots in public, bowls a gutter-ball, claims to shoot moose every day or wants to show off his wife at a biker rally, it would be a stretch to call any of them “one of us.”

Do we really want them to be ‘one of us?’

But do we want people in public office to be “one of us?” Thomas Jefferson, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt and JFK were great presidents, all coming from families that were the elite of the elite. Kennedy even exploited the whole Camelot image, bringing to mind images of royalty. They all had something that was extraordinary, however; charisma. Because of this they were able to identify with the problems of the average person without having to actually live their lives, and I would argue were all successful in making America a better place. Of course, if you are raised in a sheltered, protected life and you don’t have this gift, it may make you immune to the plight of the average American if you don’t make an effort to understand them. Hello George W?

Furthermore, even average Americans may not be great leaders. Andrew Jackson, the first president elected from the “grassroots” movement, claimed to have been born in a log-cabin. He was very popular but was a huge proponent of the “spoils system,” killed 4,000 Cherokees in the trail of tears and, though he did a decent job economically during his tenure, his policies caused the “Panic of 1837,” one of the worst recessions in American history. Warren G. Harding, elected in 1920, was raised in a middle-class family and made his own money starting from scratch as a newspaperman. He is generally considered to be one of the worst presidents ever, involving the nation in the Teapot Dome scandal and becoming the first president to have a member of his cabinet sent to prison. Of course, Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton both came from very humble beginnings and did good jobs as chief executives.

So, in closing, when a politician uses the term “I am one of you,” take it with a grain of salt, because whether it is true or not probably doesn’t mean all that much in determining how effective he or she would be. Being able to identify with the average person, understand their issues, and then have the strength and smarts to make policies to make their lives better is what makes politicians successful.

McCamley is the District 5 Doña Ana County commissioner.