Another "Hill" For Democrats

Forget about South Park Conservatives.  Matt Bai writes in the NY Times Magazine about the "Hill" that Dems should keep their eye on:

If politicians and pundits are really so desperate to understand the values of conservative America without leaving their living rooms, then they should start setting the TiVo to record another animated sitcom, which Anderson mentions only in passing and which, despite its general policy of eschewing politics, somehow continues to offer the most subtle and complex portrayal of small-town voters on television: ''King of the Hill,'' on Fox. North Carolina's two-term Democratic governor, Mike Easley, is so obsessed with the show that he instructs his pollster to separate the state's voters into those who watch ''King of the Hill'' and those who don't so he can find out whether his arguments on social and economic issues are making sense to the sitcom's fans.

...The important thing here is that Hank Hill may be a Texan, but he and his friends could live in any of the fast-developing rural and exurban areas around Columbus or Phoenix or Atlanta that are bound to become the political weathervanes of the new century. The families in Arlen buy American-made pickups, eat at chain restaurants, maniacally water their lawns and do their shopping at the huge Mega Lo Mart. This could easily be the setup for a mean parody about rural life in America, in the same vein as ''South Park,'' but ''King of the Hill,'' which was created by Mike Judge (who is the voice of Hank and who also created ''Beavis and Butt-head''), has never been so crass. The show's central theme has always been transformation -- economic, demographic and cultural. Hank embodies all the traditional conservative values of those Americans who, as Bill Clinton famously put it, ''work hard and play by the rules.'' He's a proud gun owner and a Nascar fan. When Bobby announces that he has landed a job selling soda at the track, Hank solemnly responds, ''If you weren't my son, I'd hug you.''

And is there a lesson here?

...here's where Democrats should pay close attention -- Hank never professes an explicit party loyalty, and he and his buddies who sip beer in the alley don't talk like their fellow Texan Tom DeLay. If Hank votes Republican, it's because, as a voter who cares about religious and rural values, he probably doesn't see much choice. But Hank and his neighbors resemble many independent voters, open to proposals that challenge their assumptions about the world, as long as those ideas don't come from someone who seems to disrespect what they believe.

No more sneers?  No more "Vote for my health care plan, you racist, homophobic gun nuts"?

Republican strategists can relax.

MORE:  Let's stroll down memory lane and reprise Howard's "Gun, God, and gays" debacle, with more from Miracle Max.

HOW SOON THEY FORGET:  A long article about the Dems need for a candidate with rural authenticity, and no mention of John Edwards?  Ouch.

Comments

[Moe Lane]

Even with ag subsidaries, there isn't enough sugar on the planet to make the 'gotta stop insulting the people you want to recruit' medicine go down easy for a good number of the Democratic base. And if there's a group that's less willing to listen to contrary advice, I do not know its name.

[ed]

Hmmmm.

It would probably help if they stop referring to Christians as "Christers". I have some very devout friends who really, extremely, dislike that term.

[Forbes]

Ed: It's the NYTimes--they can't help themselves.

[RS]

As a life-long Southerner (apart from a brief sojourn in London in the early Nineties), I can't resist adding my two cents here.

The "gorillas in the mist" attitude that is manifested in the NYT magazine article above is old news in these parts, a sort of casual disdain that inexplicably remains one of the few acceptable prejudices. Consider, for example, one of the publicity bits for the TNT series "The Closer," in which the heroine hails from Georgia. The writer indicated that he wanted to have a series where "the smartest person in the room has a Southern accent." It could well be that only a Southerner could understand how simultaneously sad, funny, and infuriating that statement is - the gimmick is that the chick with the funny accent is intelligent!

While working part-time to put myself through grad school at a certain old Mississippi university, I had a colleague who was from a certain Midwestern state and had come here to major in "Southern Studies." His every word and comment dripped with contempt and condescencion for the people around him. I was moved once to ask, "So, you'd discount what Einstein had to say if he had a Southern accent?" And he replied, no trace of irony, "Yes."

I know the commenters on this blog have no such problem, but Mr. Bai and many of the elite in the chattering class do - and that's a pity. The inability of liberal Blue Staters to understand Red Staters, regarding them as an alien, uneducated, potentially threatening Other - that misconception is all too familiar to those of us below the Mason-Dixon line. Y'all are new to this - we were being despised by our self-appointed betters long before the advent of the Moores, Streisands, and Deans of this world.

Indulge please one more anecdote - the lady who taught me Colonial American history, who hailed from Chicago, loved to recount how, when she told her parents that she was accepting a teaching post at a Mississippi University, they presented her with hundreds of dollars worth of postage stamps, on the assumption that the U.S. Postal Service didn't have any regular facilities "down there."

Okay, end of rant, but you other Southerners on here know what I mean.

[Crank]

Nothing quite says authentic rural America like a multimillionaire plaintiffs' lawyer, does it?

[jeff]

RS hit the nail on the head.

[TM]

LOL, crank.

And re RS, I had a Southern prof once assure me that Southern businessman and lawyers made millions playing off Northern assumptions about their stupidity.