The latest poll is
not good for the Democrats. I am not talking here of the one showing
George Bush's approval rating inching up nor the one showing immense
if dangerously ignorant support for domestic spying. I'm talking
about the recently released Harris Poll showing John Wayne one
of the most popular movie stars of 2005. The one thing he and
the Democratic Party have in common is that they are both dead.
Wayne was the quintessential
anti-Democrat. Never mind if he was a Republican, which he was.
What matters most is that everything he stood for -- from support
for the Vietnam War to antipathy to the '60s' and '70s' counterculture
-- was in consonance with GOP positions. More important, though,
his iconic man-on-horseback image has been adopted by virtually
the entire Republican Party. As a boy, Newt Gingrich tried to
walk like Wayne. Now the entire GOP does.
The Harris
people tell us that Wayne, tied for third with Harrison Ford,
is a particular favorite of men. Tom Hanks (No. 1 two years in
a row) is beloved by women and both Wayne and Hanks are the choice
of conservatives. (Liberals chose Johnny Depp and Southerners
picked Brad Pitt, but he still finished out of the running at
No. 11. On the other hand, he got Angelina Jolie which is, as
they say, tres jolie.)
But it is Wayne who
both fascinates and, as usual, commands. He personifies the gender
gap, the virtually habitual way white men vote Republican. There
are many reasons for this -- Democratic feminism, affirmative
action, etc. -- but one of them surely is that the John Wayne-style
of the GOP appeals to the cowboy in most men. Even I, Eastern
dude that I be, dispatch some awfully mean hombres in the occasional
daydream, and if I'm going to seize a beachhead, I'd rather follow
the Duke than, say, Johnny Depp. Sorry, my man, but that's the
way it is.
Back when
I met Wayne, he was something of a joke -- a dated, pro-war caricature.
It was 1977 and the Duke had been invited to Jimmy Carter's pre-inaugural
gala at the Kennedy Center. How the famously Republican Wayne
got there, I cannot explain. How I got there is even more of a
mystery, since I was not in the audience or in some press pen
but backstage, in the wings, just as the Duke was finishing up
addressing the crowd. When he was through, he walked right at
me, coming closer and closer -- looming as huge (6-foot-4) and
formidable as he seemed on the screen. John Wayne did not play
in Westerns. John Wayne was a Western.
Since that
night, Ronald Reagan -- John Wayne with a subscription to the
National Review -- has come and gone. Reagan adopted
the Wayne persona: the smiling, happy cowboy. (Actually, Wayne
hated horses and never rode if he could possibly avoid it.) Now
we have another Wayne in the White House, another rancher who
doesn't ranch, a cowboy who doesn't ride. No matter. George Bush
shed his family's Eastern ways just as surely as Wayne did his
prosaic Iowa upbringing as Marion Morrison, son of Clyde the pharmacist.
None of that mattered. He still managed to personify the West,
just as he bristled military valor without having spent a day
in the military. As Dick Cheney knows, it's safer that way.
You can scan the
length and breadth of the Democratic Party and not find any breadth,
and no Wayne figure either. It is certainly not Hillary Clinton
or Al Gore or John Kerry or Mark Warner. None of them seem to
have what it takes to appeal to white, male voters. But if you
should happen to be in room 241 of the Russell Senate Office Building,
you'll find Wayne galore: pictures of John McCain in various Arizona
settings. He's a two-fer -- a military hero and a Westerner. Democrats,
beware.
OK, the qualities
of John Wayne are not all that matters. Bill Clinton won twice
and he ain't no cowboy. So it can be done. But Wayne still reigns
because he evoked qualities that Americans -- especially American
men -- like. In that blur of movies and life, he was strong on
defense, strong on strength, violent with enemies, gentle with
women, always fair, articulate with a shrug of the shoulder and
he knew just how to walk. He played cowboys and soldiers, almost
always the hero. In the Harris Poll, he's ahead of Julia Roberts,
Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, George Clooney, Sean Connery and Sandra
Bullock. Democrats take note. The Duke is still king.
©
2006, Washington Post Writers Group
