http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1207897/posts
Who Among Us Does Not Love Windsurfing?
The New York Times ^ | September 5, 2004 | Kate Zernike
YOU'D think John Kerry could be excused for wanting to spend a summer afternoon on the water.
Instead, David Letterman mocked him for windsurfing instead of campaigning. Jay Leno played the flip-flop card, quipping that even Mr. Kerry's hobby depends on which way the wind blows.
Zell Miller, who could himself be accused of being flip-flopper-in-chief, derided Mr. Kerry's swim trunks as "silly little bicycle pants."
Conservative blogs lumped the windsurfing in with Mr. Kerry's other elite hobbies - skiing, biking, flying between vacation homes. ("He married the all-inclusive package," sneered one posting on freerepublic.com. "EVERYTHING is included.")
Like the helmeted Michael Dukakis peeking out of the tank, or the first George Bush bewildered at the grocery scanner, the photo of Mr. Kerry windsurfing played into the negative stereotype his opponents are trying to play up - in this case, that of the out-of-touch, elitist Massachusetts liberal.
The stereotypes of the sport are unfair - there are lots of plumbers and construction workers windsurfing off Cape Cod and in the lakes of Iowa. (Better put: Who among us doesn't like windsurfing?) "I would have expected it to go over well, the stodgy, overserious guy trying to do something hipper," said Robert J. Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University. "It's not like he was going out having a row with the Harvard crew team."
Still, there was the sense that no one would have mocked Mr. Bush photographed in the same position, even though the two men could have a Zell Miller duel over who has the deeper pedigree. But despite his legacy at Yale and the weekends in Kennebunkport, Me., Mr. Bush manages to pull off the common-man routine without question. Earlier this year when both he and Mr. Kerry were pictured riding top of the line bicycles, and both fell off, Mr. Kerry was the one ridiculed for the expensive bike.
"Often things that they both do still redound to Kerry's disadvantage - the Ivy League education, the biking," said Thomas Frank, author of "What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America." Mr. Frank noted that he had just attended a Republican party at the New York Yacht Club, the varnished-wood redoubt of elitism. "But somehow the image of the yacht really clings to Kerry," he said. "Largely because Republicans have made the stereotype so natural. If a liberal drives an S.U.V., it's the car of the elite, if a Republican drives one it's instantly the car of the common man. They have a whole stereotype that they've spent years building."
Professor Thompson confesses that he does not think it has anything to do with windsurfing, or skiing, or even the mansions. After all, no one made fun of John F. Kennedy for all those yachting photos.
"The thing about windsurfing is, there's wind," he explains. "It blows through your hair. John Kerry looks like a guy who could ride in a convertible with the wind rushing through all that hair, but the truth is, his hair just looks goofy when he's out there on that windsurfer. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it just boils down to the hair." Quick, somebody warn Hillary.
