via Hesiod at Counterspin Central

Workable
by Jonathan Cohn

His name is Chuck Kulikowski, and his shirt bears the emblem of American Bikers Aiming Toward Education, a group that crusades against helmet laws and other "motorcycle-unfriendly" legislation. (Motto: "Let Those Who Ride Decide.") Yet while Kerry is a well-known Harley Davidson enthusiast, Kulikowski says it wasn't the senator's interest in motorcycles that drew him to the Friday event. Instead, he says, it was Kerry's desire to drive President Bush from the White House--a desire Kulikowski shares fervently. "He's too rich, too arrogant, and he thinks he's running the world," Kulikowski says of the president. "He does what he wants, and doesn't care what other people think."

You expect to hear those sorts of things at a Democratic campaign rally, but not from a guy like Kulikowski and certainly not in a place like Warren, smack in the middle of Macomb County. A northern suburb of Detroit, Macomb is legendary for its large population of "Reagan Democrats"--white working-class voters who abandoned the Democratic Party in the 1980s because it had veered too far to the left. And Kulikowski is an almost perfect Reagan Democrat specimen: Having voted for Reagan during the 1980s, he tends to agree with Republicans on hot-button issues like abortion and gun control. But even after I point out all the issues on which he seems to disagree with Kerry, Kulikowski says he likes what he sees. "What good is a gun if you don't have a job?" says Kulikowski, a 57-year-old unemployed toolmaker. "You can't buy the bullets."