Those Democrats and Their Private Jets

Those Democrats and Their Private Jets
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: August 15, 2004

HERE are objects or possessions that scream "I'm better than you" - items that remind the average Joe of a cultural and economic divide that cannot be crossed. It's a $10,000 bottle of wine, a Hummer, a real Rolex. This year's conspicuous object seems to be the private jet.

Once, this prized possession was associated with corporate executives and reclusive stars. Or with congressmen on a junket. There was nothing political, or at least nothing partisan, about them. But since October, when John Edwards was tweaked for flying on planes borrowed from Archer Daniels Midland and other companies, they have become what conservatives have portrayed as symbols of liberal hypocrisy, much as the Volvo was a generation ago. The argument is: these people pretend to be "of the people" or at least "for the people" but they are elitists who fly far above the rest of us.

When the leftist film maker Michael Moore used his publisher's plane on a recent book tour, for example, critics lambasted him for enjoying the corporate high life. The Hollywood activist Laurie David, the wife of Larry David of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," was labeled a "Gulfstream liberal" in an article in the latest issue of The Atlantic Monthly for condemning S.U.V. owners while flying around in private planes.

Arianna Huffington, a financial backer of anti-S.U.V. commercials, has also borne the brunt of criticism for traveling in a jet; and a supermarket magnate, Ron Burkle, is perhaps as well known for his eight-bedroom 767 as he is for the more than $1.5 million that he has given to the Democratic Party since 2000.

Republicans, of course, avoid the hassles of commercial flight at least as often as Democrats. The former chairman of Enron, Kenneth Lay, even flew on private planes to his company's bankruptcy hearings. But no one accuses Republicans and their wealthy supporters of hypocrisy, of being "Gulfstream conservatives.'' "Democrats get hit with a double whammy," said Bill Blomquist, a political science professor at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. "It's not just expensive and indulgent. It's also somehow against the principles of the party."

David Horowitz, a conservative purveyor of the hypocrisy accusations, says that the attitude is "everyone should ride bicycles, but we'll take the jets."

"The schools thing is a good example of that," Mr. Horowitz says. "They send their kids to private schools, but they oppose vouchers."

The image issue, the disconnect between average Americans and the celebrities who claim to love them, starts with the sticker price. The smallest Gulfstream sells for $11.5 million. An entry-level 25-hour share of private flight time, at companies like New Jersey's NetJets, costs more than $100,000.

This is not the kind of travel available to "the lunch pail guy, or the person at the hair salon," says the Republican pollster John Zogby. "They'll never see it."

Then there's the criticism of the rich environmentalist who flies in a private jet to Sierra Club fund-raisers. A midsize Gulfstream 200 uses from 1,200 to 1,500 gallons of fuel for a cross-country flight, so if it holds four people, giving them the chance to stretch out on the leather sofas, each person would use about 350 gallons of fuel. That's 10 times the amount of fuel used per person by 130 passengers flying coast to coast on a Boeing 737-300.

It's also nearly the equivalent of driving a Hummer cross country, twice. Mr. Burkle's 767, if it carries eight people across the continent, would each use 1,000 gallons of fuel, enough for eight Hummer trips from southern Brazil to Dearborn, Mich

Mr. Burkle did not return calls for comment, nor did Ms. Huffington.

Ms. David, whose husband was a creator of "Seinfeld,'' also could not be reached for comment. Liana Schwarz, who works closely with her at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group of which Ms. David is a member of the board, said that she was out of town. Ms. Schwarz would not say if Ms. David used a private plane to get there.

Such silence, according to conservatives and even some liberals, only proves that the party of the New Deal is blind to the political danger of visible self-indulgence.

"The big problem the Democrats have is that they don't seem to understand the fundamental Republican attack on them this liberal elitist charge," says Thomas Frank, author of "What's the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America." "They don't even fight back anymore. They don't take it seriously."

Environmentalists in particular bear the imprint of their enemies. Most Americans think that so-called greens are "supposed to be dressing in wheat shoes and burlap and driving on donkeys," says Mr. Blomquist. As a result, he says, "any time they're not doing that, they're open to criticism."

Environmental advocates privately admit that they'd prefer that their liberal donors fly commercial; some even call them outright hypocrites. But they also stress that policies matter more than purchases. "The Kerry energy plan has as its centerpiece an increase in fuel efficiency for automobiles, and they are a much larger environmental concern," says John Coequyt, an energy policy specialist at Greenpeace. "Because there are more of them."

Yet making the personal political is an American tradition that's difficult to avoid. George Washington's image in the popular historical imagination is tied not just to his victories as a general and president; he's also the down-home farmer who chopped the cherry tree.

By the same token, George W. Bush may be a patrician scion of a former president but when he cuts brush in Texas, he look like an average Joe.

Such attempts to move down market are common, says Alan Brinkley, a historian at Columbia University. "Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison - they ran as log cabin boys, but they were aristocrats," he says. What's new, he says, is the Democrats' rejection of that ethos, and an inability to notice that class still matters; that stepping onto a private jet while fighting for energy conservation looks, well, less than consistent.