Jay Nordlinger has a point:

I’m learning, more and more, that political perceptions have a great deal to do with style. If you slash and shout, many people think of you as “conservative” or “right-wing.” If you say right-wing things in a calm, polite way, you may be seen as a moderate.

“Attitude” is another word that comes to mind — attitude and style. They have so much to do with political perceptions.

Think about two governors, Perry and Romney. (Well, one’s a former governor.) Perry is considered the more conservative by far. But there are some areas in which Romney is to the “right” of Perry. Thing is, Perry could quote The Communist Manifesto and he’d still come off as conservative. It’s the swagger, the chest, the twang — all that.

In the early to mid 1990s, when I lived and worked in DC, I was a writer for The Washington Times, and a conservative. But I had longish hair and favored combat boots, and looked like nobody’s idea of a right winger. It was often entertaining to listen to liberals who didn’t know me carry on, thinking I was one of them.

I am old enough, barely, to remember that the stereotyped image for “conservative” used to be a Bill Buckley or a Nelson Rockefeller type — that is, a buttoned-down Easterner, or a Midwestern banker type. Sober-sided, pinstriped. Now one associates — or at least I associate — that look with John Kerry liberals. As Jay points out, when I hear saying conservative things in a calm, polite way, I instinctively believe he must be a moderate, even if I know better. Mind you, I don’t think this is progress. I think this is what talk radio has done to conservatism — taken it downmarket.

On the other hand, when is the last time you heard a liberal speak convincingly in a way that would fire up blue-collar audiences? If I saw and heard a slobby guy offering up red meat for liberals, I would think, “Oh, Michael Moore,” but if it wasn’t him, I would be disoriented. You just don’t see working-class liberals much on TV. I remember as a kid, seeing old George Meany  of the AFL-CIO on the news a lot. When is the last time you’ve seen an American labor leader on “Meet the Press”?

I think things must have changed when American politics and class conflict stopped being about economics and started being about culture.