Democrats in Vermont and around the nation are beset with the worry that they have lost the ability to connect with a swath of voters that is described in various ways: ordinary Americans, working-class Americans, average Americans. This large demographic group is so amorphous that commentators struggle to find a clear way to describe it.In Britain they might be called the common folk, or commoners. But Britain has a more distinct and stratified class system than the United States, plus a range of accents indicating where one may be found in the pecking order. Marxists might refer to common folk as the proletariat, a mostly outmoded designation.What Democrats in America may be yearning for is a leader with the common touch.Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, has it. He comes across as honest and direct; he doesn’t use fancy language. And he’s a race car driver.One of the reasons that John Rodgers defeated David Zuckerman in the lieutenant gubernatorial race for November was that Rodgers seemed to have the common touch. Zuckerman is a farmer, but he grew up in privileged circumstances and his language is more that of the progressive left than of the barnyard. Rodgers grew up on a farm in the Northeast Kingdom.Among presidents, there have been those with the common touch and those with a verbal elegance that lifts them above the common. John Kennedy had that elegance, and his successor, Lyndon Johnson, had a touch so common the East Coast elite, as he saw it, mocked him. Dwight Eisenhower was no lightweight, but he was often mocked for his stumbling verbal style. George H.W. Bush tried to demonstrate the common touch, but he could never distance himself from his privileged East Coast origins. His son, George W., was a wealthy Texan who played up a good-old-boy style.Some politicians with elite origins find a way to express themselves with a style that connects with regular people. Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont was from a wealthy family and was a graduate of Yale, but he won people over with his plain and direct style. President Franklin Roosevelt, who came from old money in New York, won the adulation of ordinary Americans, even with his patrician accent. A biography of his successor, Harry Truman of Missouri, was titled “Plain Speaking.”Bill Clinton had the common touch. Hillary Clinton did not.The result of the 2024 presidential election has put sharp focus on the question of the common touch. Kamala Harris was a brilliant campaigner, but she didn’t soar like President Obama; nor did she give evidence of common origins. Quite the reverse. She highlighted the struggles of her immigrant mother to raise her family in difficult circumstances, a common enough story, but her mother and father both achieved success as academics. They were no peanut farmers, like Jimmy Carter.It is a sorry commentary on the nature of populist politics that Donald Trump’s vulgarity and criminality have translated in the minds of many as the common touch. The billionaire narcissist has nothing in common with his wealthy predecessors, Roosevelt and Kennedy, who felt compelled by their privilege to serve ordinary people rather than themselves.As Democrats look ahead, they are probably trying to gauge their prospective leaders with some notion of the common touch in mind. Though he is past the age when he might run for president again, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has the common touch, though his politics have won over all sorts of progressives, intellectuals, and young people — the so-called liberal elite. Partly, it’s his Brooklyn accent, and partly it’s his pugnacious, direct way of taking on the economic establishment. Weirdly, it’s likely that a share of his supporters also supported Trump.If Democrats are looking for someone with the common touch, whom will they turn to?The oft-mentioned potential candidates for 2028 include some polished, successful politicians — Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California — though it’s unclear how common their touch is. Shapiro didn’t deliver Pennsylvania for Harris. Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky is a Democrat who has won in a Southern state. He has some kind of touch. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan has displayed toughness in dealing with violent extremists and does not put on airs. Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois is a burly billionaire who speaks his mind. Can he be the rare billionaire with a genuine common touch?In Vermont Democrats are a varied lot, most of them dedicated to progressive causes — climate change, a clean environment, economic fairness. Gov. Jim Douglas was a Republican who served four terms in a liberal state because he stayed focused on what he called “affordability,” meaning low taxes and lower housing costs, among other things. This is an agenda many Vermonters find attractive today because of the broad economic inequality that persists in Vermont and nationwide. Progressives find it frustrating when their focus on a message of greater economic fairness gets lifted by charlatans like Trump or by honest conservatives like Douglas or Scott.Voters don’t require smoothness or eloquence, so often prized by the so-called elite and widely appreciated from Kennedy and Obama. What everyone is looking for in a political leader is something genuine, tough and humane. Those words describe Jimmy Carter, a better president than people understood at the time. His successor, Ronald Reagan, a Hollywood actor, acted out the role of a leader with the common touch, but it was during his terms that economic policies fostering wide and damaging inequality took hold.History will continue to unfold in ways the so-called common people may or may not fully grasp. And it is they — it is all of us — who will bear the consequences.Read the story on VTDigger here: David Moats: Looking for the common touch.