Julian Zelizer: Will 'intellectual' label hurt Obama?
[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is the author of "On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and its Consequences, 1948-2000" and the editor of "The American Congress: The Building of Democracy." He is finishing a book on the history of national-security politics since World War II. He regularly writes for Politico, The Huffington Post and the Washington Independent.]
PRINCETON, New Jersey (CNN) -- There is a big question that hangs over this presidential campaign: Will a majority of voters give their support to the presidential candidate who is the intellectual in the contest?
Barack Obama has all the credentials of the famous "pointy-headed" intellectuals in the Democratic Party who have traditionally gone down to defeat.
He has degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, he taught at the University of Chicago, and, yes, he even wrote his own books. In speeches and debates, he has bombarded voters with detailed arguments about public policy. When his character is attacked, his instinct is to respond with facts and figures.
It is extremely surprising that Obama has this done this well given his intellectual persona. Anti-intellectualism, as the historian Richard Hofstadter noted, has been a tradition in American history.
Since World War II, Republicans have been very successful at making Democrats who appear too intellectual the subject of derision, symbols of how liberals are out of touch with average Americans and lack the passion needed for leadership.
In the 1952 presidential election, Dwight Eisenhower's running mate, Richard Nixon, unleashed a vicious attack on Democrat Adlai Stevenson, who had received degrees from Princeton and Northwestern Law School, for being an "egghead" too closely associated with the university class rather than the working class.
Nixon linked softness on Communism with intellectualism, saying that "Adlai the Appeaser . . . got a Ph.D. from Dean Acheson's College of Cowardly Communist Containment."
The anti-intellectual argument continued to be a powerful tool for conservatives. In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan mocked Jimmy Carter as a president who could not lead in part because he became so bogged down by the details and facts that he could not see his way out of economic and foreign crises.
In their famous 1980 debate, Reagan responded to Carter's scholarly recitation of the problems in the health care system and of Reagan's opposition to Medicare, by smiling, laughing, and just saying, "There you go again."
Vice President George H.W. Bush used this line of attack against Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988. Dukakis was extremely intelligent and comfortable with the complicated policy issues. He also was advised by some of the brightest minds in the academic world....
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PRINCETON, New Jersey (CNN) -- There is a big question that hangs over this presidential campaign: Will a majority of voters give their support to the presidential candidate who is the intellectual in the contest?
Barack Obama has all the credentials of the famous "pointy-headed" intellectuals in the Democratic Party who have traditionally gone down to defeat.
He has degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, he taught at the University of Chicago, and, yes, he even wrote his own books. In speeches and debates, he has bombarded voters with detailed arguments about public policy. When his character is attacked, his instinct is to respond with facts and figures.
It is extremely surprising that Obama has this done this well given his intellectual persona. Anti-intellectualism, as the historian Richard Hofstadter noted, has been a tradition in American history.
Since World War II, Republicans have been very successful at making Democrats who appear too intellectual the subject of derision, symbols of how liberals are out of touch with average Americans and lack the passion needed for leadership.
In the 1952 presidential election, Dwight Eisenhower's running mate, Richard Nixon, unleashed a vicious attack on Democrat Adlai Stevenson, who had received degrees from Princeton and Northwestern Law School, for being an "egghead" too closely associated with the university class rather than the working class.
Nixon linked softness on Communism with intellectualism, saying that "Adlai the Appeaser . . . got a Ph.D. from Dean Acheson's College of Cowardly Communist Containment."
The anti-intellectual argument continued to be a powerful tool for conservatives. In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan mocked Jimmy Carter as a president who could not lead in part because he became so bogged down by the details and facts that he could not see his way out of economic and foreign crises.
In their famous 1980 debate, Reagan responded to Carter's scholarly recitation of the problems in the health care system and of Reagan's opposition to Medicare, by smiling, laughing, and just saying, "There you go again."
Vice President George H.W. Bush used this line of attack against Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988. Dukakis was extremely intelligent and comfortable with the complicated policy issues. He also was advised by some of the brightest minds in the academic world....