SENATOR PHONY

Lost in the brouhaha about Virginia Senator George Allen’s labeling of a native born Virginian as a “macaca” (say what?) is that fact that George himself is most certainly not a native born Virginian. Indeed, Senator George might be considered something that was once abhorrent to real Virginians: a carpetbagger.

Senator George is prone to wax lyrical about such things as Virginia values and Jeffersonian principles. In his “macaca” speech, he went on to talk about showing the “macaca” the real Virginia. If by real Virginia, he meant what sounded like a crowd of boisterous, at least slightly bigoted rednecks, then he did so.

But us true Virginians like to think there is more to our state than boisterous, bigoted rednecks. And many of us true Virginians have marveled at how a cowboy-boot-wearing native of California—the birthplace of Senator George—has so completely adopted the trappings of a Virginian, and even more surprisingly been accepted as a Virginian by so many of our fellow citizens. It’s certainly nothing wrong with an individual pursuing a political career in a state other than his or her birthplace. But the individual should have the humility and decency to not oversell his or her connections to the adopted state.

Which brings to mind another politician who has successfully distanced himself from his birthplace and background. Born to an old New England family that has a palatial summer estate in Maine, educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and Yale, George W. Bush has a goodly proportion of the population believing he is your basic Texas oilman and cowboy. His image is much of his appeal. Many of his supporters would no more vote for an individual who identified himself or herself as being from New England as they would vote for a, well, “macaca.” Yet they have no problem with a New Englander who has developed a Texas accent, cuts brush on a Texas ranch, and cultivates an air of anti-intellectualism

Is it just a Republican phenomenon to be taken in by image? Probably not, but at the moment the leading image politicians, most notably Senator George and President George, happen to be Republican. Maybe it is the nature of the image: Good Ol’ Boy. A sizeable segment of the population thinks of themselves as Good Ol’ Boys or the Gals of Good Ol’ Boys. So when a politician adopts the pose of a Good Ol’ Boy, that segment is sufficiently flattered to overlook the silver spoon in close proximity to the alleged Good Ol’ Boy’s mouth.

DSH