Love those Elites—

This is from Michelle Obama’s stump speech printed on Powerline.

“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”

 

This comes from a woman who is bitter that her SAT scores were low but attended the Ivy League’s Princeton and Harvard. My SAT scores would have been too low to get into Harvard if SAT had existed at the time. I have been called an elitist. For me that is a compliment. After all I am just a redneck boy who got lucky a few times.

 

The only way I will crack the millionaire’s club is through the lottery. I do not attend fancy functions, I hate them. One might call me anti social because of my love for solitude. Which is in some part stimulated by my dislike of phony people.

 

While my pedigree may be more upscale than either of the Obamas, I am far from being privileged. One would never confuse me for an elite if they saw me in a pair of five year old shorts and a even older tee shirt covered with dust and grime from mowing. My vocabulary, while vast compared to children of today, palls in comparison to a Harvard educated lawyer. While they may hold educational advantages, they are in the dark when it comes to understanding how the world works.

 

Living inside a bubble of the educationally crippled the Obamas, the Clintons and others of the socialist persuasion do not understand what makes us tick. God, Guns and Grandma for starters, throw in Chevy, Ford, Mom and apple pie. We are pretty simple humans with simple needs, but we know what we like.

 

Apparently the majority of the U.S. likes elites. The media says that we recoil from them, but look at the past presidents. GW Bush Yale grad, MBA graduate from an old money family as was his father GHW Bush. In case you haven’t priced estates on the coast of Maine, small fish need not apply for a loan.

 

While WJ came from humble roots, he attended Yale, was a Rhodes Scholar in the UK. He ran off to the Soviet Union during his did not inhale days. That little side trip still bother me. When you take off the glitter, WJ is a bubba, a down home car salesman with few equals. His wife may have come from middle class background but she attended one of “the” girl’s schools, moving on to Yale law, hardly, the path of the middle class.

 

As someone once said to me, I would never think of sending my child to an Ivy League school the best I could hope for them is the state university. That is middle class, that is what most of us aspire to for our children. Few of us are lucky enough to have our children attend the crème de la crème.

Prior to GHW, we had a true man of the people, Ronald Reagan. No wait he was a movie star turned politician, so he wasn’t really an ordinary man when we elected him. The populus elected a movie star as their leader. Once again the majority chose style over substance.

Finally we strike gold, Gerald Ford. Yes, the butt of many, many jokes and jabs. A Michigan University, ex-football player turned politician. According to a friend of mine, who cared for his dogs, Ford was a very nice man. Yet, he was much maligned by the media as being dim witted.

Then there was Jimmy Carter, who came from Georgia and humble roots. Before becoming president he was an admiral in the Navy. That is a very powerful position, but he achieved that and more without an advanced start afforded Ivy League education.

If you think I am off base, try Al Gore. Graduated from Harvard after attending St. Albans school in Washington D.C. Al’s father was a U.S. representative and Senator which explains why Al was in D.C.

Following Gore as the democrats Candidate against GW was John Kerry. Kerry’s mother was part of the Forbes family. John spent his summers on the estate in France. As an undergrad Kerry attended Yale and became a member of Skull and Bones. An association to which both GW and GHW Bush belong.

So, what do you think now? Still think U.S. voters abhor elitists? The facts are the facts and there seems to be an affection for those of privilege. Maybe it’s time to start at the grass roots and find some real people to send up the ladder.

In the meantime the selection is between two Ivy League graduates and a third generation military man. McCain grew up in D.C., attended the Naval Academy where he would have flunked out had he not been the son and grandson of Admirals. He may consider himself a man of the people but his second wife is worth over $100 million. That takes him out of the common man status.

 

Good luck--