The Trouble With Cool

Following up my observations on Obama as the cool candidate, another way of looking at it -- indeed, probably the correct way of looking at it -- is in terms of Garance Franke-Ruta's old observation (that I can't find on Google for some reason) that Hillary Clinton is the middlebrow candidate in the race. That, more than cool/uncool, captures the Wire versus Ugly Betty dynamic. And it's also, of course, Clinton's big advantage. TV critics like The Wire but Ugly Betty has a much bigger audience. At the end of the day, how many people know who will.i.am is?

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/02/the-trouble-with-cool/48352/