I want to respond to comments left on my previous two posts becuase both comments bring up some valid points.


In response to the first post, "On $400 and Haircuts and Mill Workers" Eric writes:

While I think the media is overplaying Mr. Edward's haircuts, it does seem to point to a potential disconnect between his populous message. When he rails against the fat cats, it is difficult not to see him as one of them. I personally don't care the gentleman spends to have his hair cared for, it is his hair and his money. He has every right to spend it as he sees fit. There are a lot of rich folks that were born 'poor' and worked there way into money, and here is the shocker, they are on both sides of the aisle.


I have to agree with Eric on not caring how Edwards, or any Republican for that matter, spends their money and whether or not they get expensive haircuts. And he is right to point out that there are examples on both sides of the aisle of individuals who came from modest backgrounds and ended up wealthy. I don't have a problem with that either. There are also individuals on both sides of the aisle that were born into money.


Eric also wrote:

when the Republicans get blasted for being the lackeys for Big Business, I find it funny that no one seems to notice that most of the same Big Business folks donate to the other side and often fund their parties.It is extremely naive to believe that politicians on either side actually care for the poor or the working class.


This is also a legitimate point. It's true that a lot of corporate cash flows to both sides. As we saw with the recent K-street incidents and scandals, however, there is a slightly higher amount of money, especially from certain industries, that goes to Republicans (the K-street fiasco was a pretty telling case of how Repubicans were using their ties to big business specifically to keep their party on top and trying to run K-street as a Republican operation using their connections). But the Democrats are also beholden to corporate interests and receive huge amounts of money from big business. That is an issue that is starting to be addressed by many Democrats in congress and one that has been of significant importance to the progressive movement. That is part of the reason that I wanted to highlight Edwards' speech criticizing NAFTA and other Free Trade Deals. Edwards is in the Democratic estabishment, but he is starting to talk seriously about things that need to change, things that, if followed through on by the Democrats in congress and the next president if he or she is a Democrat, would actually help the middle and working classes.

Both parties have been guilty in recent years for doing the bidding of corporate America. We saw this under Bill Clinton and one of the best examples is what Edwards was criticizing--NAFTA. However, there is a movement within the Democratic party and the Democrats in congress to challenge this and make serious reforms. No Republican candidate that I am aware of has made any serious criticisms about corporate money and influence. We are only really beginning to see that on the Democratic side of the aisle.


I pointed out Edwards' recent speech and the field day that the media have been having with his haircut to prove a point. The media doesn't engage in such tactics with respect to Repubicans and yet, not only are none of the Republican candidates proposing any serious reforms vis-a-vis corporate influence, the conservative movement is and always has been about corporate interests, whereas there is a genuine tradition of real populist reforms in the Deomcratic party (FDR being the biggest example). Republicans have also enganged in their own phony populism in the past, and yet, the media seems incapable of challenging the populist image that Republicans have tried to cultivate with the ferocity that they reserve for Democrats. Thus, I don't necessarily agree with Eric's comment that "Mr. Edward's haircuts,...[do] seem to point to a potential disconnect between his populous message." I think the media would like for people to see it that way. But it doesn't matter how much money any candidate has or what they spend on themselves personally, if that candidate is proposing the right reforms and addressing serious economic issues that affect the middle and working classes and if he or she works with the movement for change in these areas that is starting to take shape and influence the Democratic party.


I more or less agree with Eric's comment that "It is extremely naive to believe that politicians on either side actually care for the poor or the working class." Thre is reason to be skeptical of a populist message coming from any source. The Democrats have certainly sold out the working and middle classes in recent decades, so we do have to be careful and increase the pressure on them to match their actions with their words.


However, I pointed out the treatment that Edwards has been receiving to point out that the media wants people to believe that no politician is or can ever be sincere about serious economic reforms. This is self-defeating if we buy into it and it happens again and again with Democrats precisely because, if any serious economic reforms are going to be made, they are going to made by the Democrats and the progressive movment and as a result of the pressure that that movement is putting on the Democrats.

This latest Edwards incident is yet one more example of the media's penchant for going after Democrats in ways they do not go after Republicans, especially when it comes to issues related to economic reforms and to class. Paperwight's Fair Shot describes exactly what is happening here with Edwards and the media in the following post, discussing what is often referred to as the "class traitor" phenomenon, as it has been exemplified in situations involving other Democrats:


According to No More Mister Nice Blog, some wingnuts are now whining about how rich Barack Obama is. I noticed that they did this with Kerry and Edwards, and George Soros, and are doing it with Nancy Pelosi. I continue to be fascinated that they don't whine about how rich the Bushes are, or how rich all of the funders of the Right Wing Noise Machine are, or the eighteen wealthy families who spent millions on tearing down the estate tax to save themselves billions. But I think I understand it: wealthy liberals are class traitors.


See, one has to understand that one of the key characteristics of wingnuttery (and I'm beginning to believe, conservatism in general) is an absolute lack of empathy. So, all of the wingnuts are all cool with the super-rich acting in the most venal and self-interested ways, because that's what all the wingnuts would do....


When someone has a fair bit of money* but actually looks beyond themselves, and worse, might actually engage in some structural change that allows regular people to have decent lives without prostrating themselves before the ruling classes (see, e.g., wingnut welfare), well, those people must be destroyed. They undermine the wingnut worldview of unalloyed 24 carat selfishness as the primary human condition.


They are class traitors.


(Emphasis mine) That pretty much sums up, in my opinion, the central difference between the Democratic party and the progressive movement on one hand and the Republican party and the conservative movement on the other and the respective treatment that candidates in each party receive with regard to the class they belong to and the images the media helps to create v. their actual positions on specific issues. So, while I do agree with Eric that it is niave to believe either party really cares about the middle and working classes (we shouldn't just take the Democrats, or the Republicans for that matter, on their word), but that doesn't mean that we should not believe that there are politicians out there who will, especially if given support and pressured, live up to many of the reforms that are part of that populist message. That's why we have to pay attention to what candidates are saying with regard to specific issues such as Free Trade and, if we vote them into office, hold them accountable if they do not live up to what they say. This is also why we should see the media's obsession with Edwards' haircut and the "elistist" image of the Democrats, an image that the media is always more than happy to reinforce and never question against an examination of the specific issues, for what it is.