Julian E. Zelizer: Perception Politics
[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of Jimmy Carter by Times Books, Arsenal of Democracy by Basic Books, and editor of a book assessing former President George W. Bush’s administration by Princeton University Press.]
WHEN JOE Wurzelbacher, a.k.a “Joe the Plumber,” confronted Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign and criticized his tax plan, conservative pundits immediately used the encounter to raise questions about whether the Democratic candidate was a socialist. The actor John Voight wrote in the Washington Times that, “It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers, and Phleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America.”
It was difficult for many Democrats to believe that the charges would stick. After all, Obama was anything but a socialist. Many liberals had been far more excited about the candidacy of Senator John Edwards because he was the only candidate willing to talk about issues like poverty and urban decline. If anything, Obama was more like Bill Clinton than Lyndon Johnson, part of a new generation of Democrats who were not invested in the orthodoxies of the 1960s....
Read entire article at Dissent
WHEN JOE Wurzelbacher, a.k.a “Joe the Plumber,” confronted Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign and criticized his tax plan, conservative pundits immediately used the encounter to raise questions about whether the Democratic candidate was a socialist. The actor John Voight wrote in the Washington Times that, “It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers, and Phleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America.”
It was difficult for many Democrats to believe that the charges would stick. After all, Obama was anything but a socialist. Many liberals had been far more excited about the candidacy of Senator John Edwards because he was the only candidate willing to talk about issues like poverty and urban decline. If anything, Obama was more like Bill Clinton than Lyndon Johnson, part of a new generation of Democrats who were not invested in the orthodoxies of the 1960s....