The New Gilded Age : With the rise of Steve Forbes, Americans’ traditional hostility to the rich seems to have evaporated. : To Win, Politicians Masked Their Wealth

Malcolm (Steve) Forbes Jr. represents a new force in American presidential politics. Not since the Federalist Party collapsed in the early 1800s has a wealthy aristocrat freely admitted the extent of his wealth, avidly sought to benefit the rich and trumpeted his inherited privilege as a qualification for the nation’s highest office.

Since the days of Andrew Jackson, candidates for president viewed their fortunes as an impediment and tried to embrace the common man, either by artfully inventing modest life histories or by championing the interests of working Americans.

The demise of the Federalists and the triumph, one generation later, of the Jacksonians hardly drove the wealthy out of the White House--it merely forced them under cover.

In 1840, the Whig Party laid the blueprint for deceptions with the “Log Cabin and Hard Cider” campaign of William Henry Harrison. Though “Ol’ Tippecanoe” was descended from one of the first families of Virginia and grew up in a pillared plantation house teeming with slaves and servants, Harrison’s handlers passed off the superannuated war hero as an ordinary Joe, a man born in a humble cabin who preferred proletarian cider to more effete beverages. This makeover not only diverted attention from Harrison’s lineage, it also made the Whig program of protection and subsidies for business more palatable to the masses.

From Abraham Lincoln to Jimmy Carter, subsequent U.S. presidents followed Old Tippecanoe’s model. Lincoln exaggerated the modesty of his ancestry and exploited his image as a young rail splitter studying by candlelight even after he had become a successful lawyer and amassed a considerable fortune. By 1842, young Lincoln was an influential member of Springfield society and his annual income exceeded that of the governor of Illinois. He solidified his social standing later that year when he married the aristocratic Mary Todd.

In the 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt distracted attention from his upper-class background with feats of physical derring-do and threats to grab one prominent big businessman “by the seat of his breeches and chuck him out the window.” John F. Kennedy’s family had vast wealth and brilliant celebrity, but Roman Catholics felt slighted by the nation’s Protestant elite. Transforming these snubs into a badge of honor, Kennedy portrayed himself as a member of a disadvantaged minority, even as he luxuriated behind the walls of the family’s Hyannisport compound. Carter passed himself off as a humble peanut farmer, despite his training as a nuclear engineer and the extensive holdings inherited from his father.

Even billionaire defense contractor Ross Perot billed himself as an ordinary citizen, articulating in plain sense the frustration of working Americans with the corrupt elites who fatted themselves at the public trough. As one opponent jibed during the 1992 campaign, Perot was acting for the little guy, “buying the White House for the people because it’s out of our price range.”

Not all well-heeled presidential candidates have had to sell themselves as ordinary Joes. Americans accepted and even revered patrician presidents as long as they championed liberal reform and the interests of the dispossessed. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example, descended from the Dutch Patroons of the Hudson River Valley and grew up in a charmed world of wealth and privilege--schooled by private tutors, Groton and Harvard, with homes in Hyde Park, N.Y., Campobello, Me., and Warm Springs, Ga. But Roosevelt offered relief for the victims of the Great Depression, recognition for organized labor and social insurance for the disabled and elderly.

His fellow aristocrats labeled him a traitor to his class. Only twice during Roosevelt’s triumphant 1936 reelection campaign did audiences greet the conquering hero with boos, and that came during his visits to his alma mater, Harvard, and to Wall Street. Roosevelt reveled in their animosity, denouncing his fellow plutocrats as “the privileged princes.” Concluding his campaign with a massive rally at Madison Square Garden, Roosevelt declared, “The forces of selfishness have never before been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me. They hate Roosevelt and I welcome their hatred.”

In the 1960s, Arkansas Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller broke the historic pattern. A pro-business Republican, Rockefeller could not credibly pose as the people’s champion, and a Rockefeller could hardly mask his wealth. Instead, Rockefeller emphasized Arkansas politicians’ penchant (then as now) for petty corruption.

A Rockefeller, Winthrop reminded the voters, could not be bought--at least not for the chump change that tempted other Arkansas politicians. More recently, Winthrop’s younger relation, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) spent millions of his own money on campaign commercials, buying votes with the promise that PAC’s and special interests could not buy him.

On the surface, Forbes appears to continue along these lines. Like Perot, he has catapulted himself into serious contention by spending millions of his own dollars on political advertising. Like the Rockefellers, Forbes makes no effort to hide his inherited privileges; he eschewed graduate school, Forbes wryly told reporters, because nepotism seemed the easier and more profitable route.

But Forbes is different. Unlike Perot, he’s no man of the people. His media campaign is no messianic effort to tear down the establishment and enfranchise the little guy. Nor does Forbes tout his wealth as evidence of his incorruptibility, a la the Rockefellers.

Instead of claiming that his millions grant him immunity from the self-serving ambition of other politicians, Forbes freely admits his own naked greed. The centerpiece of his program is a flat tax that would fall exclusively on wage earners and exempt all investment income--every dollar generated by his $400 million fortune--from taxation. And Forbes has restricted his personal appearances in New Hampshire to Rotary Clubs and other like-minded groups--never venturing out into the Granite State’s struggling neighborhoods.

Forbes’ brazenness points out the triumph of the market ethos. Only in a culture that venerates the market outcomes could a multimillionaire buying votes with his own money in order to pad his own bank account become a folk hero.

From the earliest days of the Republic, Americans were ambivalent about extreme wealth. They admired enterprise and respected riches, but worried that money perverted public life and insisted the ethic of the marketplace compete with other more equitable and resilient principles. Americans have accepted wealth in the White House, as long as it testified to hard work and achievement and did not indicate insensitivity to the aspirations of ordinary citizens.

Today, in an odd reversal of history, fortune has become an advantage rather than an impediment and the common man embraces the multimillionaire in Iowa and New Hampshire. The historical legacy of Lincoln and Roosevelt threatens to fade behind the financial legacy of Malcolm Forbes Sr.