Since the moment that President Obama selected Elena Kagan as his Supreme Court nominee, people have been arguing about what she is and what she is not. Is she the best candidate available? Or not? Is she a leftist? Or more moderate? Is she a lesbian? Or is she simply a woman who remained single and private all her adult life? (Never mind that this last issue is one which I truly believe is ultimately none of our damn business.)
Obviously, however, much about Kagan is fact, thus not open to dispute. So, when this administration tries to paint Kagan as someone from "real America" and one of the common people - Dan Gerstein takes issue.
(The White House) has chosen to replay the Sotomayor empathy soundtrack and repackage the prototypical meritocrat Kagan as the next coming of Norma Rae--without noticing the obvious differences in the two nominees' life stories. More important, it has failed to process the jarring irony of trying to pass off a classic insider with Kagan's vita--Upper West Side childhood; lawyer and teacher for parents; Princeton undergrad, Harvard Law School; a career in government and academia--as a divining rod of the common man's trials.
Vice President Joe Biden neatly summed up the White House line Tuesday morning on Good Morning America. "She is Main Street," he said. "Both her parents were sons and a daughter of immigrants. ... This is a woman who's lived in the real world." Really? Think most people in Kentucky or North Dakota or even Delaware would consider studying and working your whole life in elite schools, practicing law briefly at a high-priced white-shoe firm and holding top jobs in the Clinton and Obama administrations living in the "real world"?
And - why does any of this matter?
The problem, as I originally argued last fall, is that the otherwise diverse Obama team is intellectually and culturally monochromatic. There are no recovering Bubbas or James Carville types who grew up in Sarah Palin's version of the real America and who were acculturated to engage with and win over blue-collar workers. Nor are there policy mavericks like former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, or deal-cutters like former Louisiana Sen. John Breaux, who are programmed to think outside the box, reach beyond their circles--or at least tell the president the difference between Elena Kagan and Joe Sixpack.
I believe this lack of diversity has at times shaped the Obama administration's policymaking decisions for the worse--and thus hurt its standing with the white, working-class voters who were wary of Obama from the beginning. But I think the most obvious and damaging impact, as we've seen with the Kagan case, has been on how the White House communicates and connects with the public. Too often they speak as if every voter is a member of the Sierra or Harvard clubs--and as if no one, other than rabid Republicans, questions whether the first black president with the funny name and trillion-dollar health care bill shares their values. As a result, they've too often exacerbated those suspicions instead of assuaged them.
This blog makes me realize the energy of words and pictures. I am grateful that you let us look in! Keep coming up with ideas.
Posted by: Jordan Sneakers | Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 01:52 AM