Senator Kerry of Massachusetts gave the nation a flavor of his campaign themes the other night in his New Hampshire victory speech, vowing to “defeat George W. Bush and the economy of privilege.” He spoke of “repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans,” of creating “an America that belongs not to the privileged, not to the few, but to all Americans.” And he delivered the whole address standing before a backdrop that said, “Fighting for us.”

Just who “us” is was left unclear. It doesn’t sound like “us” is “the privileged” or “the wealthiest Americans.”

Vice President Gore tried this approach in 2000, saying, “They’re for the powerful. We’re for the people.” It came close to winning the electoral vote but did not succeed. Here’s Mr. Gore at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles in 2000: denouncing “Big tobacco, big oil, the big polluters, the pharmaceutical companies, the HMOs.”

Here’s Mr. Kerry in New Hampshire Tuesday night, denouncing “the polluters, the HMOs, the drug companies, big oil, and all the special interests.”

Where the Kerry backdrop Tuesday said “Fighting for us,” Mr. Gore in 2000 promised, “I will fight for you.”

There may be some support in America for an angry class-based populism, though we doubt a majority of Americans are ready to rush to the barricades. At other points during the campaign, Mr. Kerry has stressed his pro-business credentials, his vote for welfare reform, his willingness to support some tax cuts. But if Tuesday night was an indicator of where the Kerry campaign is headed, we predict the senator from Massachusetts is in for a rocky ride. And not only because the message is weak, in a country where lots of us enjoy miracle cures and cheap gasoline because of “the drug companies” and “big oil,” and where a lot of middle-class workers have retirement accounts or union pension funds swelled with stock in energy and drug companies. But because the messenger is, well, hampered by his own circumstances.

How John Forbes Kerry can credibly campaign against “the economy of privilege” is beyond us. He was in Skull and Bones at Yale. He lives in a $10 million townhouse on Louisburg Square in Boston’s Beacon Hill. He summers in Nantucket. Forbes estimated his net worth at $550 million, more than Jay Rockefeller.

Maybe between the guilty rich and the angry poor Mr. Kerry can cobble together a coalition to defeat Mr. Bush in November. Our guess is that there are far more of a third category of people — optimists who are happy that America is a place where hard workers with some luck can build vast fortunes.