PERSPECTIVErnFrom Bryan to Buchananrnby Thomas FlemingrnIt is an unwritten law of American politics that the politiciansrnwho devote themselves to the single-minded pursuit of powerrnand wealth must pretend to be men of the people. The 1996rnpresidential campaign might have been scripted by FrankrnCapra, since virtually every candidate is a would-be John Doernor Jefferson Smith, taking on the Washington establishment inrnthe name of the average guy like you and me.rnPat Buchanan or even Ross Perot might claim, with somernjustification, to represent middle American protest, but whatrnabout Lamar Alexander (winner of Tennessee’s Al Gore lookalikerncontest) and Phil Gramm, who are running against Washington?rnSo is Steve Forbes—the epitome of an elite-class insider.rnCongressman-for-life Newt Gingrich would like us to seernhim as the advance man for a Middle American revolutionrnagainst Congress, while Bill Clinton represents himself as one ofrnthe boys from Arkansas standing up against the wicked Republicanrnestablishment. (By all accounts, these Arkansas boysrncould teach a thing or two to their counterparts in Newark andrnPalermo.) Even Bob ‘Tll-be-anything-you-want-me-to-be,rnyou-want-me-to-be-Ronald Reagan-I’ll-be-Ronald-Reagan”rnDole occasionally grunts out some Middle American platitudernabout lower taxes or dirty movies.rnYes, we’re all populists now. Wealthy actor and big businessrnspokesman Ronald Reagan was a populist; so was Annapolisrngraduate and peanut factor Jimmy Carter; and so, in 1968, wasrnRichard Nixon, the politician Lyndon Johnson admired most.rnJohnson may well be the last man to run as an unabashed representativernof what big government can do for you, whichrnturned out to be killing our sons in Vietnam and bankruptingrntheir grandchildren with deficit spending.rnwhat, exactly, is a populist? Most people would, withoutrnthinking, exclude machine politicians like LBJ and spoiled richrnboys like—fill in the blanks—^but it is no easy task to discern arnphilosophy or a set of goals, apart from the resentment of thernunwashed for the washed, that connects Andrew Jackson withrnWilliam Jennings Bryan, Ben Tillman with Ross Perot, TomrnWatson with Burt Wheeler or Pat Buchanan. One standardrnview is that populism is little more than the perennial protest ofrntaxpayers against tax consumers, of wealth producers againstrnwealth breeders (i.e., those who live off dividends and speculation),rnof the periphery against the center. Populism, on this understanding,rnis only a symptom of a disease, of interest only tornpolitical sociologists and other pathologists who have learned tornhold their nose long enough to take a close look at the politicsrnof this great democracy.rnThere is another view, put forward by some libertarians,rnwhich makes populism one corner of a four-sided political boxrnthat also includes conservatives, liberals, and libertarians. Herernthe point of discrimination is the attitude toward government.rnConservatives, for example, want limited government in eco-rn8/CHRONICLESrnrnrn