I have a pet academic interest in America's cultural transition from JFK's preppy virility to LBJ's crass swagger in the '60s, and the related class issues. I'm convinced that the pendulum shift between the two models over the last four decades has had an outsized impact on our political climate (see Kerry, John, subsection "windsurfing"). I think Wood's argument is really insightful in this context, and hopeful, that an intellect-based masculinity need not be a classist masculinity:
"This seamless melding of white- and blue-collar achievement has rendered Obama the embodiment of smooth... The result is that Obama has accomplished what men like Sen. John Kerry and former Vice President Al Gore were not able to accomplish; he has brought sexy back to white-collar masculinity."
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