WHAT'S WITH THIS NEW COOL STANDARD?

Conservative -- and cool: How the right has come to reflect middle America's pop culture (James Sullivan, August 24, 2003, San Francisco Chronicle)

With California's recall election scheduled for Oct. 7, Gov. Gray Davis is facing the prospect of losing his own gig. His detractors say it's the budget woes, but the underlying issue is an image problem: Gray Davis is a profoundly un-funky man.

For better or worse, Davis represents the present-day face of the Democratic Party in America -- apparently humorless, wonkish, staid and distant. The party of John F. Kennedy and Jesse Jackson has turned an embarrassed cheek to its own charismatic past, preferring in recent years to cast itself as efficient, businesslike and not in any way associated with the radical longhairs some of its members may have been during the dreaded 1960s.

Meanwhile, the Republicans, once considered your father's Grand Old (and hopelessly out-of-touch) Party, are addressing middle America in their own language, which is to say, their popular culture. George Bush drives a pickup truck, hams it up with Ozzy Osbourne and speaks about world affairs in simple, homely terms so "the boys back home in Lubbock" can understand.

Don't try telling this to that Ed Villainy guy. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 25, 2003 6:55 PM