I picked up a Forbes magazine on a flight from Cleveland to San Diego last week - it happened to be the Forbes 400 issue, showing the 400 richest Americans. Number 389 is Heinz-Kerry, with a net worth of about 750 million dollars. That makes John Kerry one of the wealthiest politicians in the country, if not the wealthiest. Only Ross Perot was ahead of him. Bush, of course, is not on that list, but he also does not have to worry about paying the rent every month. A man whose father was a career politician and the president of the United States, who was governor of Texas himself, whose brother is also a governor, and who is president now, I would certainly consider part of the privileged class of our society.

It makes me wonder how those two people can stand up in front of the country, both of them, and tell us that they are looking out for the middle class. I don't believe either one of them has the foggiest idea what it's like to live a middle-class life in this country.

I am buying regular gasoline at $2.38 in San Diego right now. I know what it is like. They do not.