Citizen Tom

Lately, there has been a lot of buzz about Gov. Sarah Palin’s use of the expression “Joe Six-Pack”.  Here is how she used the expression in her debate with Sen. Joe Biden.

One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let’s commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars. We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings and we need also to not get ourselves in debt. Let’s do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don’t live outside of our means. We need to make sure that as individuals we’re taking personal responsibility through all of this. It’s not the American peoples fault that the economy is hurting like it is, but we have an opportunity to learn a heck of a lot of good lessons through this and say never again will we be taken advantage of.  (from here)

That seems innocuous enough, but much of the news media has a problem with the expression.

• Some at the LA Times wonder:  Is Sarah Palin really a Joe Six-Pack? Am I? 
• At the Examiner.com, some find the expression insulting:  Joe Six-Pack vs Cranberry Martinis.
• When you read some at the Washington Post, you can easily sense that some there also hold their nose up:  Joe, and Sarah Six-Pack.
• Even the UK’s TimesOnline finds the expression belittling:   Shallow, fake… Sarah Palin is beyond parody.

A few in the news media, however, recognize the “Joe Six Pack” message for what it is:

The heart of her message was a complete populist pitch. “Joe Six-Pack” and “soccer moms” should unite to fight the tormentors who forced mortgages on us. She spoke of “Main Streeters like me.” A question is at what point shiny, happy populism becomes cheerful manipulation.  (from here)

What is Joe Six Pack about?  Palin is trying to tell us she identifies with us.  She is one of us.  She is on our side.  She is also most certainly not the first national political leader to use this expression.  In 1998, then President Bill Clinton used the expression.

Jones had sued Clinton for sexual harassment, claiming that he exposed himself to her and propositioned her in an Arkansas hotel room in 1991, when she was an Arkansas state employee and Clinton was the state’s governor. U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright threw out the case on Wednesday for lack of grounds.

“If I were just a private citizen, Joe Six-Pack, I would have mixed feelings about not getting a chance to disprove these allegations in court,” Clinton told Time managing editor Walter Isaacson, in a wide-ranging hour long interview aboard Air Force One, returning from Africa this past week.

“But I don’t have mixed feelings as president, because having the case dismissed and putting this behind us is plainly in the best interest of the country,” he said. (from here)

Clearly, Clinton was not one of us.  After that, the New York Times felt compelled to make absolutely certain we all understood the expression. 

In recently revisiting the Presidential conditional, Mr. Clinton used a colorful modern locution to contrast his highly responsible Chief Executive position with that of the average person having plenty of time to spare, whose name was first Everyman.  (from here)

Although God loves all of us, each and every one, no one wants to be Everyman, an average soul.  We want to be Somebody.  After all, don’t we all ridicule the unwashed masses — all those average, ignorant people.  But like it or not, almost all of us are one of those unwashed masses, and in our hearts, we know it.  So we want to elect people who empathize with us, people who truly do feel our pain when we hurt. 

Do John McCain and Sarah Palin feel our pain, or are they manipulating us?  What about Barack Obama and Joe Biden?  What about the news media?  As McCain said at this evening’s debate, “we need to look at the record as well as the rhetoric”.  We also need to check a variety of news and information sources.  No single news source is entitled to our complete trust.

We will never know for certain what is inside the heart and soul of another.  That is why we need to look carefully at the record of each candidate.  What is their track record?  What do their peers say about them?