In politics this past week, John McCain stumbled over his answer about how many homes he owns (as of today, it’s either seven or eight, depending on whether or not the newly purchased home for the kids counts).

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign made much of McCain’s faulty memory. They almost instantaneously pounced on it, producing an ad charging that any man who is so wealthy he doesn’t know how many homes he has, and who thinks wealth begins at $5 million, can’t possibly be “in touch” with the American people.

A spokesman for McCain came right back at Obama. “In terms of who’s an elitist, I think people have made a judgment that John McCain is not an arugula-eating, pointy-headed-professor type based on his life story.” Translation: It’s irrelevant whether John McCain (or his wife, or her corporations) have a lot of money and a lot of homes, or that McCain likes to wear $500 Ferragamo loafers. McCain is a former POW who wears a baseball cap and is basically just another regular guy. Obama, on the other hand, is a dreaded intellectual.

What’s with our obsession with whether or not our presidential candidates are “regular” folk (just like us), or are “in” or “out” of touch with us? Does anyone really expect a presidential candidate to be doing the weekly shopping at Safeway, sitting up late at night paying the bills, or cleaning out gutters on Saturdays? Asking the “in or out of touch” question — about particular presidential candidates in general, but these two in particular — reveals just how mixed up American attitudes toward wealth and education are.

As usual with trying to understand our American selves, it would be helpful to ponder Alexis de Tocqueville’s insights. In observing the power of what he saw in America to be an overwhelming “equality of condition,” Tocqueville observed that, above all else, Americans loved equality. He also saw that a counterforce pushing toward inequality would develop along with that love for equality. To Tocqueville, the lack of class distinctions in America — the “equality of condition” — would lead to an obsession with “getting and spending.”

It’s also helpful to consider the “in touch or out of touch” question regarding our candidates in light of Richard Hofstadter’s 1963 book, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. Hofstadter argued that anti-intellectualism is so deeply entrenched in the American spirit that it actually pre-dates American nationhood. Today, even we professors celebrate the virtues of college more for its power to help people “succeed” (i.e., accumulate wealth) than for its power to develop and liberate minds.

While McCain would do well to read Tocqueville, Obama should study Hofstadter. That way, each would learn what he has to hide. As for the rest of us, we’ll adore wealth until it’s pointed out to us that a particular political leader possesses an awful lot of it, and value education until it’s pointed out to us that a particular political leader got his at Harvard.