McCain's "Friends"

by eriposte

No, I don't mean the corporate media that is part of his campaign outreach.

Mad Kane (emphasis mine):

Wow!  Even Don “McCain Worshipper” Imus can’t stand it any more. I just heard Imus tell Craig Crawford:

If he says “my friends” one more time, I’m gonna kill myself.

As it turns out, Saint McCain - the one who makes the press corpse routinely reveal it's true self - is not the first politician to keep referring to his audience as "My Friends". I would love to know who he picked it up from. Could it be this guy?

For companionship, and to learn the tricks of the campaign trail, Franklin [Delano Roosevelt] invited Richard E. Connell, the editor of the Poughkeepsie News-Press and perennial Democratic nominee for Congress, to accompany him. Connell was a gifted stump speaker in the florid style of William Jennings Bryan and began each of his orations by referring to his audience as "My Friends" - a phrase Roosevelt quickly adopted as his own. It was also Connell who advised FDR to discard the pince-nez he had worn since Groton. Made him look snooty, said Connell. [Eriposte note: Groton was the elite private school that FDR attended].

That's from page 65 of Jean Edward Smith's biography FDR, discussing his New York State Senate campaign roughly 100 years ago.

Funny how history repeats itself.

P.S. A few posts worth reading: Yesterday's Daily Howler where Somerby makes some points similar to mine; Michael Lind in Salon.com on "The Rubes and the Elites"; Anglachel's post: In Praise of Cities.