Dale Peterson, who wanted to tough-talk and scold Alabamans into voting for him as the state’s agriculture commissioner, is back with another of his cowboy-hat-wearing, gun-wielding ads, this time to endorse his former opponent, John McMillan. Apropos Peterson’s cowboy persona, Racialicious has a great piece up about the American cowboy myth. It points out what any real student of the American frontier already knows: that many cowboys were African American, Mexican, and Mexican American and were largely itinerant workers who didn’t own the horses they rode on or the cows they drove.
The piece also lists the white male politicians who have successfully drawn on the myth of the white American cowboy hero to get their way into office, from Teddy Roosevelt to George W. Bush. The only thing I would add, though, is that it doesn’t always work. Peterson didn’t win. Voters can be harsh when they feel someone has adopted a fake, drugstore-cowboy persona just to appeal to them, and the personal charisma of Reagan and Bush went a long way to helping them successfully employ a frontiersman-like attitude.
— Monica Potts
