This was a very interesting listen for anyone who believes that NPR only plays to the left-wing, liberal elitists.
From the Fresh Air site:
Moore is the president of the Club for Growth and contributing editor for National Review. The Club for Growth has a political action committee dedicated to elected conservative politicians who carry on the Reagan vision of "limited government and lowered taxes."
What to listen for: A commercial produced by the Club for Growth attacks Dean as yet another latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, ... liberal. Terry asked what made drinking lattes and driving Volvos something that only liberals would do, and Stephen responded by saying that it was something liberal elitists would do, much like northeastern journalists (which Terry happens to be). He came very close to insulting her, although they both took it with a good deal of humor. (If Terry was insulted, she never showed it.)
So she pressed him for a better definition of what he meant by "elitist." Summarily, he said that an elitist was someone who thought that they (in the form of big government or other professionals) knew better than you what you should do in your life: what schools to go to, what to do with your Social Security money, etc. Elitists, he says, tell businesses what to do and not to do, speaking from no experience of running a business. Liberals, he said, are the party of the elite, unlike conservatives.
That's well and good, but does it work in practice? That is, can we not also apply his definition of elitist to conservatives, albeit in a different way? He says populists (the opposite of elitists, and within which he counts himself) think people can make good decisions for themselves, acting in their own self interests.
Further into the interview, it turns out that he's much more a Libertarian (like me) than Republican. And now, once I again, I'm left wondering why all the news media sources out there aren't doing more to help the problem that not a lot of people really like either Bush or Kerry, but don't feel like they have a viable alternate. Why doesn't the media start promoting less-well-known candidates? We pretty much know all we need to know about Kerry and Bush: both suck, just in different ways.
