A Times front-page profile of Sean Eldridge, a Democrat who apparently hopes to win a congressional seat in New York's Hudson Valley now held by a Republican, reports: "Mr. Eldridge's supporters note that for all the trappings of wealth he now possesses, Mr. Eldridge grew up in a middle-class community in Ohio, where both of his parents were doctors; they say he has a genuine understanding of people of modest means."
Maybe Mr. Eldridge's parents were both unemployed doctors, or maybe their malpractice premiums were so high they could barely eke out a living in the absence of tort reform. But it's funny to see the flexibility of the Times definition of middle class. If it's for the purpose of describing the family of a gay Democratic potential challenger to a New York Republican congressman, a two-doctor family is middle class. But if it's for the purpose of one of President Obama's proposed tax increases, a two-doctor family isn't middle-class, it's "rich."
According to Mr. Edlridge's 2012 Times wedding announcement, "He is the son of Dr. Sarah Taub of Toledo, Ohio, and Dr. Stephen A. Eldridge of Ann Arbor, Mich. His mother is a family physician at the Milan Family Practice in Milan, Mich. His father is a diagnostic and interventional radiologist in private practice in Toledo." A 2011 Toledo Blade article described Dr. Eldridge as "chairman of the radiology department at St. Luke's Hospital and executive vice president of Consulting Radiologists Corp."
The whole conceit of the Times article is the assumption that rich people somehow can't authentically represent non-rich people in Congress, a view that, while it may be held by the editors of the Times or the reporter who wrote the article, does not appear to be shared by, say, the voters of West Virginia who elect Senator Rockefeller, or various constituents of various Kennedys.