The New Politics of Wealth Denial

Posted: 26 Apr 2012 08:56 AM PDT

One of the most famous and funny Monty Python skits is the “Four Yorkshiremen.” Four cigar-smoking, tux-wearing swells recount their childhood and try to top each other with stories of hardship.

One says he used to live in a single room with 26 others.

“Eh, you were lucky to have a room!,” says another. “We used to have to live in t’ corridor!”

“Oh, we used to dream of livin’ in a corridor!” says another. “Would ha’ been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.”

The other responds, “Well, when I say ‘house’ it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.”

” We were evicted from our hole in the ground and we 'ad to go live in a lake.”

And so on…

The Four Yorkshiremen provide an apt analogy for the populist, anti-privilege strain running through the presidential election. In drawing the line between himself and Romney, President Obama is filling his stump speeches with his own version of the “You were lucky!” competition.

It started with Obama telling audiences that he wasn't born rich – unlike Romney, who was. Then he said he and Michelle had to take out student loans to go to college. Not only that, but they weren't able to pay off the student loans until eight years ago.

Romney — he of the $250 million net worth, twin Cadillacs and penchant for viewing $360,000 a year in income as “not much money” — has joined in as the second Yorkshireman. He said he once worried about getting fired.

College? Well, you were lucky, Romney says. He says his dad was born in Mexico, grew up poor and never even got to go to college. And his grandfather was a poor carpenter and contractor.

“And as you may know, contractors have financial difficulty from time to time.”

And so on.

You can't blame the candidates for trying to highlight their “everyman” roots at a time when many Americans feel that Washington and the wealthy are ignoring the concerns of the rest of the country. Obama is clearly using wealth as the real differentiator in the campaign.

But let's get real. George Romney's family wasn't really poor – at least not for long. And Obama and his wife were making more than $200,000 a year before they paid off their loans. Their competing poverty narratives are about as credible as the Yorkshireman’s family living in the lake.

Rather than spending time exaggerating their own family hardships, perhaps the candidates would do better to highlight the real struggles faced by the rest of the country.

What do you think of the “Four Yorkshireman” strategy of the Obama campaign?