Dems Want Jimmy Stewart, Reps Want John Wayne

Many moons ago, I sat in an open air theater in a small town in Israel and watched the greatest Western ever made, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. It was right before the 1973 Yom Kippur War, back when Israel was always the "good guy." The movie is wonderful in so many ways. The music, the direction, the stars, the plot, it all works so beautifully. Even a song that didn't make the final cut of the movie was a big pop hit.

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, Jimmy Stewart plays a lawyer in a Western town right before the region becomes an official state in the Union. It's still very much a rugged place where God made man and Samuel Colt made them equal. But Jimmy Stewart won't wear a gun. He's a walking metaphor for civilization, for the goodness of man.

John Wayne is a rancher who thinks that Jimmy Stewart is a fool. They both, of course, vie for the hand of a beautiful woman, Vera Miles. A bad man comes to town, Lee Marvin. Words won't vanquish him. He, like John Wayne, is a vestige of the old wild West. And when he is shot (in a wonderful twist of plot where John Wayne does the shooting from the shadows), not only is Lee Marvin vanquished, but so is the entire rowdiness of the West. Now the region is ready for statehood. The law of words can replace the law of the gun.

As I watched the movie that night, I wondered if my Israeli cousins understood that what they were seeing wasn't just a Western. It was a metaphor for the entire history of the US. I asked them after. They said no. They thought the movie was pretty boring, actually. So much for movies that transcend culture.

When I think of that movie now, I think it not only encapsulates the history of the US, but also how we vote. Republicans vote for the guy that most acts like John Wayne. They want someone virile with a swagger and a gun, someone with a square jaw who isn't about learning, but about doing. Democrats vote for the guy that most acts like Jimmy Stewart. They want someone who understands books, is well spoken, good hearted and earnest.

We've been voting this way for decades. It's a vote between the values of the rugged individual, John Wayne, versus the civilized man of words, Jimmy Stewart. If you want to update the actors, it's Clint Eastwood versus Tom Hanks. But it's the same vote.

Look at who the Republicans have come up with as candidates in my lifetime, Eisenhower, Nixon, Goldwater, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush. It mostly follows the John Wayne model. There are war heroes and football players, men of action and few words. They tend to have a swagger. Our current president does, that's for sure. He walks like John Wayne, but unfortunately thinks like Elmer Fudd. Oops, I went off message again.

On the Democratic side, we've had Stevenson, Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore and Kerry. They mostly follow the Jimmy Stewart model. They are on the bookish side, use three words when one will do, and all care deeply about their fellow human beings. When Democrats lose, by the way, they tend to come up short on the Jimmy Stewart model by putting forth candidates who just seem like effete wimps. Jimmy Stewart was not effete. Gore and Kerry both are and it's no wonder that the Democrats lost the past two elections.

This year, it looks like we are following that pattern again. The Republicans have come up with a war hero from the West with a swagger, John McCain. The Democrats have their Jimmy Stewart types, highly educated people of many words, Obama and Clinton. The good news for the Democrats is that neither Obama or Clinton are wimps. The bad news is that Jimmy Stewart was not black or female. And I'm guessing that this piece of bad news means that whether it be Obama and Clinton, the Democrats are going to have to have a big lead on paper going into November to overcome those who won't vote for a black or a woman, but tell pollsters that they will.

Like the movie Liberty Valence, our John Waynes and Jimmy Stewarts vie for a prize, except in this case it's the presidency not Vera Miles. In the movie, Jimmy Stewart, because civilization trumps the wild West, wins the girl. But in US elections it goes back and forth. Sometimes the public longs for the nostalgia of the rugged individual and goes for John Wayne. Other times they want a government that works for the people and goes for Jimmy Stewart. This year I'd bet 10K easy in Vegas that it's Jimmy Stewart's turn.