What's with the rolled up sleeve bit guys?

Ugh...Stupid Here Again:

Note: Have you ever gotten the idea that politicians who want to get your vote, or hucksters trying to win your confidence, employ simple cues to attempt to ingratiate themselves into your perceptions? Nothing shows this better than the "rolled up sleeves" motif.

In this election cycle, Howard Dean never missed an opportunity to roll up the sleeves, (hereafter called RUTS), regardless of the weather, the audience, or the setting. John Kerry showed he could do the RUTS routine as well; as did Edwards, Clark, and even Al Sharpton.
<------------------------------------->
From Matt Labash: Senior Writer at The Weekly Standard.

DURING THE DEBATE, another dialogue goes off under the stewardship of Anderson Cooper, whom TV critics frequently mistake for "edgy"--though in fairness to Cooper, it's an easy mistake to make since he shares a line-up with Aaron Brown. Over the last few months, candidates have attempted to make inroads into the youth vote: Howard Dean has identified himself as a metrosexual, John Kerry has gigged with Moby, and Dennis Kucinich has consorted with rappers like Noyeek the Grizzly Bear, picking up endorsements such as "Yo, I love this fool."

Throughout the debate, it's clear that young people like to be pandered to, and politicians like to pander--the perfect marriage. This is evident in the 30-second candidate videos (Wes Clark, never known as the class clown, is actually seen having an earnest discussion about the potential break-up of Outkast, before bumping knuckles with a young voter). But it is more evident in the candidates' dress. While a good portion of the young audience are in coat and tie, Dean comes out with no jacket and rolled-up sleeves. John Edwards wears a coat, but no tie. Joe Lieberman and John Kerry, perhaps feeling overdressed, both ditch their jackets before the debate gets started. By the first commercial break, Edwards loses his jacket and rolls up his sleeves. Later, Al Sharpton sheds his jacket and unbuttons his vest. Wesley Clark, in jacket and black mock turtleneck, looks like he's on his way to a humanities professor party. And Dennis Kucinich, wearing the exact same rig, looks as if Clark's mother laid out his clothes. (Clark, perhaps not wanting to be outdone by Lieberman, Kerry, Edwards, and Sharpton, also ends up ditching his jacket.)

That settled, they get onto the issue young people care about most: antebellum racism. An audience member pounces on a tempest-in-a-teapot, Dean's lazily phrased attempt at outreach to southern voters with Confederate flags on their pick-up trucks (allowing grandstanders Edwards and Sharpton to establish, once and for all, that the Democratic party is no longer pro-slavery). There are plenty of non-youth-vote-type questions, on everything from the Cuban embargo to Iraq. But all the questions that are unorthodox, and could only be asked by Rock the Vote-ish audience members, tend to remind observers how painful it is when presidential candidates try to "keep things real," as Cooper implores them to do. (Even Bill Clinton--who was better than anybody at keeping it real in a fake way--let slip to the kids that his favorite musician was Kenny G.)

During the obligatory pot-smoking question, several candidates seem willing to drink bong-water if it would establish their credentials. When one woman asks which of their fellow candidates they'd most like to party with, Lieberman creeps-out the room by saying, "I hope my wife understands this. I'd like to party with the young lady who asked that question." Sharpton takes it further, saying he'd like to party with John Kerry's wife. Kerry sheds his long-faced Easter Island mask, adopts a self-conscious smile, and says he'd wanted to party with Carol Moseley Braun, but now he'd better stick with Sharpton "so I can keep an eye on my wife." Sharpton and Kerry then clasp hands in what is the first, and it is to be hoped last, soul-brother handshake of this election.

Back in the spin room after the debate, the candidates enter one by one. On a TV platform, Gideon Yago is complaining to Paula Zahn that the candidates failed to "really open up a dialogue." Yet they are willing enough to talk freely about their youth-vote outfits. When I ask Wes Clark what was going through his mind when he showed up in the same clothes as Kucinich, he looks as startled as a possum in the high beams, but regains his composure, and answers, "I thought Dennis Kucinich had excellent taste." When I ask Edwards why he stripped down during the debate, he seems to have trouble keeping it real. "Sometimes, formality...can push people away. Especially young people. Sometimes they feel uncomfortable. I want them to feel comfortable."

Outside, I run into a group of middle schoolers from Newton. "You're the children, you're our future, get in there," I say to them, in the interest of establishing a dialogue. They can't get into the party, they complain, because alcohol is being served. The youth issues that concern them most, they tell me, are gay rights and birth control. "It happens every day in our lives," says one 11-year-old girl. I have to admit, I'm taken aback. When I was 11, the only issues I cared about were football cards and "Gilligan's Island" reruns. Ihadn't yet formed my political worldview, unlike the junior-high boy who told me, "I like Al Sharpton. He's awesome! He's not, like, boring."

Being not boring is what it's all about. As Rock the Vote president Jehmu Greene says, "Now that we are done rocking the candidates on live television, for the next month we will keep on rolling and build on the energy and excitement . . . with a Rock the Video contest"--in which youths can select their favorite candidate video--the "perfect way to keep the party going." It gives them, she says, "a direct way to provide feedback." Establishing dialogue is, like, a two-way street.
<------------------------------------->
Note: The most brazen make-over candidate for the 2004 RUTS Commemorative Award has to be GW Bush, who today: (the second day of the RNC 2004) is featured on the cover of Time, Newsweek, NY TImes, and others in classic RUTS regalia. I wish I had time to see how many photos show GW in RUTS historically. Betcha it wasn't many...and certainly none that were front page.

As distasteful as this craven mechanism is, it could be worse: when global warming becomes so bad we all have to go around wearing hats outdoors, the man-of-the-people RUT move might require some dexterity with the chapeau...or perhaps it might have something to do with bermuda shorts? Ugh