Writer Advises Dems to Dump Hollywood

Scot Lehigh writing in the Boston Globe has some advice for the Dems - dump the Hollywood connection. It just doesn't play well in the red states:

Indeed, watching Howard Dean campaign around unpretentious Iowa with Martin Sheen and Rob Reiner in tow in the days before the caucuses, one could sense that the former Vermont governor had lost his way. Sheen, who in particular seemed to believe the campaign's events were really about him, would recite a poem by Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, fairly radiating self-satisfaction as he built to a crescendo. He and Dean would share a few jokes built around the oh-so-clever premise that because Sheen played the president on "West Wing," it was witty to call him Mr. President -- and wittier still to have him refer to Dean that way.

It was a wearisome act that only served to undercut the blunt, unvarnished Vermont authenticity that had been one of Dean's principal attractions in the early days of his effort.

I know how I reacted to the smarter-than-thou Hollywood lefties who showed up everywhere with the various Dem campaigns, and I can imagine the folks in flyover country were even less amused. The image that Hollywood personalities have in much of the country is not a good one, which makes their voting advice pure poison for their favorite Dem candidate. We'll see if the Dems pay attention.