‘Elite’ is a good thing

Here’s some free advice for the two millionaires now running for president, claiming the other is out of touch with the American people: Stop trying to relate to me.

It creeps me out a little.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is worth as much as $250 million, and President Barack Obama, who is worth as much as $12 million, have been working overtime to portray each other as unable to relate to the common man.

Obama says Romney would usher in an era of tax cuts aimed at rich people such as himself, while Romney says Obama spent a little too much time at Harvard and among sycophants at 35,000 feet on Air Force One. (Romney actually spent a little more time at Harvard than Obama, but as he’d probably tell you, he didn’t inhale.)

While I can’t speak for my fellow Americans, I can tell you I’m comfortable with a president who can’t relate to a schlub like me. I didn’t go to Harvard, as Romney and Obama did for post-graduate studies, but I can still admire and appreciate them for it. I didn’t run a multimillion-dollar company, as Romney did, but I can still understand that it takes skill and smarts to do so. I never taught constitutional law, as Obama did, but I have plenty of respect for those who do.

True, when Obama muses about the high price of arugula at Whole Foods and Romney discusses his wife’s dual Cadillacs and remodels a La Jolla, Calif., house with car elevators, I can’t relate. But I’m cool with that, because we’re talking about the president of the United States, not casting for the next “Hangover” movie.

And frankly, I want somebody who’s smarter, more skillful and more experienced than me to be my president.

I honestly don’t know when we decided that the president should be a regular guy, somebody you’d like to sit down and have a beer with.

The last president who fit that description was George W. Bush, but even he went to Yale and then Harvard — and by the time he was running for president, had sworn off drinking completely.

The question that faces us — now that Rick Santorum has dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination and Newt Gingrich is bouncing checks — is not whether we will have an elite member of American society as president, it’s which elite will we choose? And I would humbly suggest we make that choice based on their records and relative skills, not whether either of them really likes to eat at Carl’s Jr. (Romney is said to be a fan of the jalapeno chicken sandwich.)

Democrats, especially, argue that Romney can’t relate to the struggles of regular Americans, and thus won’t be motivated to address their problems. Romney has taken the bait often, responding by telling a story about how he once feared getting a pink slip (without revealing, as the authors of “The Real Mitt Romney” did, that he had a backup plan as a safety net).

But Romney has plenty of experience in government and corporate America, and if voters select him to be president, it will be because of his skills on the economy, not whether he really likes Subway.

And Romney’s attempts to portray Obama as elite are also irrelevant. Sure, he lives in a famous mansion now, flies on Air Force One and signs bills with pens specially engraved with his signature. But it wasn’t always thus; Obama’s roots are quite humble. But if voters select him to be president, it won’t be because of his roots, it will be because of what he’s accomplished, and what they think he can do in the next four years.

I’ll probably never drink a beer with either guy. But I’m OK with that. They should be, too.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPoltiics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at (702) 387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.