There are some highly intelligent conservative spokespersons, but their general voting constituency in rural America seems to distruct intellectuals. I think it goes back to the old prejudice of straight-talkin' frontier folks against smooth-talkin' city slickers...a cultural phenomenon that has been played upon and mythologized in countless movies and stories of the American West, the American South, etc...

They like George Bush because he reminds them of themselves..."just a regular guy".

Very few American politicians do not at least try to somehow earn those hometown, simple folk credentials, because it will get you votes.

Jimmy Carter benefited from it, remember? He was just "a little peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia". Nixon tried hard to make out that he was just a regular middle class guy whose wife wore an inexpensive "Republican cloth coat". It's laughable, but they all do it one way or another if they possibly can. Reagan played on the noble, craggy Frederick Remington cowboy-style image. Kennedy reminded folks that he had fought heroically in the war and been wounded. Etc...etc...etc...

They all try to prove that they are the kind of guy you want coaching your kids' little league baseball team. What a line! LOL!

The worst possible thing an American candidate can do is fail utterly to meet those hometown expectations of Ay-Murrican masculinity and patriarchal toughness combined with fairness.

Excuse me while I snicker in my popcorn and wait for the cavalry to ride in to the rescue...