Populist Currents in the 2008 Presidential Campaign

Abstract

This chapter highlights the populist strains in the 2008 campaigns and connects them to the nation's long history of politics “for the people.” When “Joe the Plumber” heckled Obama in Toledo, when Clinton hoisted a brew at a bar in Indiana, when Palin proudly introduced herself to the nation as a “hockey mom,” they were participating in a tradition of populist electoral appeals that can be traced back to the Whig Party's “Log Cabin and Hard Cider” campaign of 1840. Though populist campaigning took a digital turn in 2008 with the emergence of campaigning via interactive digital communications technologies, this chapter concludes that, as in the past, the populist rhetoric of the 2008 campaigns often had very little to do with policies that promoted the greatest good for the greatest number.