Fuck, Argent, they’re not stupid, they just live in Iowa! Whole Foods is hardly an obscure store in reality and in popular culture. Hell, there was mention of it in Reality Bites back in the early '90s (where the joke was that one of the characters was too incompetent to be hired by Whole Foods - alas, that joke no longer holds since Whole Foods relaxed their hiring standards.)
Seriously, do you think people in Iowa don’t have televisions or radios or computers or internet access? When was the last time an Iowa Doper said, “Dur - Whole Foods, what’s that?” in a Cafe Society thread?
Jewel, Dominick’s, those I always explain (the two major supermarket chains in the Chicagoland area). But Whole Foods? Fuck, it’s almost a brand-name-turned-generic-vernacular now, meaning “any organic leaning overpriced store where granola cruching hippies and yuppies with too much money go to waste it.”
“Where can I get Evening Primose Oil?” “Try a health food store or Whole Foods.”
Shit, I know what a Tim Horton’s is, and there’s none of those in my state.
Well, this thread explains why the Republican play book - aided and abetted by the press - still works. Their standard practice is to paint the democratic nominee as an effete, elitist, out-of-touch, wuss. They did it very effectively vs. Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry. Not so well vs. Clinton.
Read Glenn Greenwald’s book, Great American Hypocrites, for an exhaustive discussion of the tactic.
What the Republicans want is for the press to pick up on trivia such as the whether the candidate prefers orange juice over doughnuts and then fret endlessly over whether the American public will vote for someone who isn’t “like them.” Not being fat is just way number 1,342,354 that the Republicans are using to point out that Obama is not just like most Americans.
Yet somehow, it is always the Democratic nominee that gets this treatment.
Nobody ever worries whether a candidate that wears $500 imported loafers, owns 8 homes, or has $100,000 in credit card debt is out of step with the American public if they happen to be a Republican. All of McCain’s elitist, out-of-touch, effete characteristics pass without mention. Can you imagine if Michelle Obama, rather than Cyndi McCain, said in an interview that owning a private plane is the only practical way to get around her state? Or that she just had to buy a second beach house because her first beach house was being used too much by her kids?
The saddest part of all this from my perspective is that every time the press gets used like a rented mule. After the election the press starts running mea culpa articles in which they hint that maybe, just maybe, they were complicit…then they run right out and do it again only more so in the next election cycle.
Right now, you will see on every “news” show hours upon hours of taking heads and panels discussing whether there is any basis for McCain’s bizzarre attacks on Obama and very few asking the question about what these ads say about McCain’s character and fitness for service.
Are you serious? He was talking to a bunch of farmers about a place which has “Foods” in the name, and telling them outright that it sells the vegetable also known as “rocket”. He should have probably used the other name for the plant, but what kind of idiots do you take them for?
There aren’t any in my state (I checked their website) but I know what it is. Just like I know what Trader Joe’s, IKEA, Food Lion, Krispy Kreme, and Fred’s are, even though we don’t have those either. I bet they get the news in Iowa too.
OK, so Obama made a speech in front of a small group of farmers in Adel, Iowa on 7/27/2007 (a fucking year ago). That’s where he made a remark about arugula. This gaffe was so egregious that I can find exactly zero references to it in the archives of the New York Times from 7/27/07 through 12/31/07.
The Chicago Tribune, which has a pretty lengthy blog post about the speech, mentions the arugula line exactly zero times.
The “Iowa Insider” blog of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier discusses the “14-minute” speech without bringing up arugula once.
The Des Moines Register, the major newspaper covering the Adel area, mentions “Obama” and “arugula” in the same article exactly zero times from July through December 2007.
Man, those salt-of-the-earth Midwesterners must have been fucking pissed.
But, thank God a blog post in the New York Times was there to give voice to the unspoken rage of the long-suffering Iowans. In a 7/27/2007 post, the valiant NYT blogger reported:
What an effete snob! The nerve of that man! He had the gall to suggest that increasing food prices at the supermarket were not showing up as increased profits for farmers! Fucking out of touch liberal.
Those, poor, poor, people in Iowa. How long must they suffer from politicians using big words and talking about topics that are just too complicated for the good, simple farmers? At least this time, a blogger from the NYT was there to protect them.
Look, Obama made a remark that “perhaps” (according to the NYT blog) fell a little flat. The people who covered the event for the local press obviously couldn’t have cared less about it. And, the idea was a valid one – farmers weren’t seeing the benefit of increasing food prices. A stupid example for Obama to use, but really, this is a fucking issue? Really? You know, if you really want to know Obama’s view of the pivotal arugula issue, do some fucking research. Obviously you have access to the internet; use it to learn something.
By the way, just the other side of Des Moines from Adel is Grinnel, IA. Grinnel, IA is home to Mariposa Farms, which supplies most of the central US with fresh and dried organic herbs, including:
I’m a left-liberal vegetarian, and even I don’t know what some of that stuff is. You can find their fine products in Cub Foods, Dahl’s, Dillons Stores, Econo Foods, Hy-Vee, Super Valu, Walmart Super Centers. Not sure about Whole Foods.
OK, you know what, I’m going to go ahead and apologize for what I said before I get skeletonized by the piranhas here. I’m sorry I spoke with such a broad brush and without thinking; farmers aren’t all ignorant of Whole Foods, there are plenty of people in Iowa who know what arugula is and where to get it, and the article quoting Obama is likely taking what he said out of context. Alright, points well taken.
That is, except for the last one. Cervaise is a cunt. You hear that, you cunt? I’m a big boy - I can appreciate it when people tell me how they really feel about me - and now whenever I see your name, I’m going to see “cunt.”
I was going to just call you a cunt again and continue the name-calling, but now that I think about it, there is something I feel like I need to bring up - the fact that your location says “underpants.” To put aside the insults for a second - if you are in underpants, I’m going to have to assume that you’re either a cunt, an asshole, or a dick, just by common logic.
So - sarcasm aside - that response makes a great deal of sense.
And yet, McCain gets a free pass when he rides in a golf cart on a Kennebunkport estate, wearing $520 Salvatore Ferragamo shoes. Mainstream media do not call attention to McCain weirdness. That’s why McCain — a celebrity for decades — gets away with slamming Obama as a celebrity with editorial impunity.
Runners World did a feature on George W. Bush a few years ago, mentioning that he was most likely our fastest president ever, and definitely the fastest president whose run times are verifiable.
A year or so ago somebody wrote an editorial waxing wroth about GWB requiring or encouraging his staff to exercise with him. Unfortunately, I can’t find the article now to link to.
I hate to come off as a farming country rube, but a hell of a lot of thought, planning, and research goes into what crop is going to be planted. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to think that a farmer would know about arugula. They don’t just know corn ya know. They rotate what is grown.
OK, this is a very good point, and it’s basically true. The Republicans are almost always the ones who make a tactic of trying to paint their opponents as “effete” and “not a man of the people.” (It’s a pretty good tactic - the Democrats might want to, you know, take a page from the playbook in this specific case.) John Kerry sat back and let Bush attack his military service and his elitism and he didn’t take advantage of the rich opportunity to point out that Bush was not even born in Texas, that he came from the ultimate blue-blood WASP family. Even the dour Boston Kerry had German Jewish immigrants just one generation removed from him - Bush was the one who was blueblood all the way. But the Democrats didn’t exploit this, they didn’t expose Bush for the faux-populist hack that he actually was.
Whether or not they themselves engage in this “he’s not a real man of the people” tactic, the Democrats need to realize that they are very vulnerable to it, and act accordingly, if they want to win.