It has come to my attention that the presidential candidates are having trouble defining "rich."

This is very important when it comes to deciding where to target the tax breaks. Barack Obama says he wants to cut taxes for the middle class, which is the class just below "rich." John McCain presumably subscribes to the Reaganesque principle that a rising tide lifts all boats. If you lift the yachts, you also lift the bass boats. He figures "rich" starts somewhere, say, around $5 million.

I grew up on the fringe of a Southern mill village and spent 50 years working for newspapers, so I have a pretty good perspective on the definition of "poor." That gives me a head start in defining "rich," and I'm going to try to help the two candidates in that respect.

Barack Obama, as his campaign likes to say, "made the journey" from food stamps to arugula (that's a fancy Italian salad vegetable, for you ordinary folks). Humble guy that he is, he still thinks of himself as a "poor boy," in the laudatory Southern sense of the word (Poor Boy's Family Restaurant; Poor Boy's Used Cars, Poor Boy's Bait Shop). That means that those in his economic bracket also qualify as "poor boys." So Bill Gates must be up there in the middle class.

John McCain is a third-generation admiral, which means he never had to eat navy beans as his main course. Since his marriage to Cindy, he has been rolling in the suds. So what if he doesn't know how many houses they own? The houses belong to Cindy, who laid a pre-nup agreement on him, so the number is sort of irrelevant to John unless she's charging him rent.

Is Joe Biden rich? To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends on what you mean by "rich." The TV talking heads pointed out that Biden is the poorest guy in the Senate, with a net worth of minus $300,000. He even rides Amtrak to work, for crying out loud. But you and I know that anyone who can afford to be $300,000 in the red is not truly poor. And only a dummy would drive from Wilmington, Del., to Washington, D.C., when he could catch a train.

Joe Biden may gauge his wealth by net worth, but Joe Sixpack has another measure. He doesn't base his affluence on how much he'd have left after he sold everything he had and paid everything he owed. In Joe Sixpack's world, nobody ever does that. He bases his estimate on how much money he has left for beer and a night out at Zaxby's after he's bought groceries and paid the bills. By that measure, Joe Biden is doing all right. His congressional salary is more than $14,000 a month, which will buy a lot of chicken fingers and Natty Boh, even after he's paid his Amtrak fare.

So for the benefit of both candidates, I'm giving some guidelines for deciding who's rich and who's not. By Joe Sixpack's measure, you're rich if:

* You can afford to buy a vehicle that gives you a $10,000 cash rebate.

* You can afford to fill the tank of that vehicle in one installment.

* You haven't bounced a check in the past two years.

* Neither you nor anyone in your social group has, in recent memory, had the lights cut off or the telephone disconnected for non-payment of bills.

* You own a car with fewer than 100,000 miles on the odometer, a house with positive equity, and a 70-inch flat-screen television set.

* When you think of elegant dining, you don't think of Applebee's.

* When you make a major purchase and ask, "How much is it?" you're talking about the total price, not the monthly payment.

* You don't have a single recipe that calls for Hamburger Helper.

* You have season's tickets to Bryant-Denny or Jordan-Hare.

* You fill up with Super Premium even though your car will run fine on Regular.

* You need a corkscrew to open your wine bottle, and the label consists of a French word and a year.

* When you think of "cheap Scotch," you think of Cutty Sark.

* When you go into a grocery store, you don't head directly to the display marked "buy one, get one free."

* You buy the name brands and never even glance at the store brands.

* The family vehicle has at least one television set on board.

* When your doctor orders a test, you never ask, "Will my insurance pay for it?"

* Your kids play soccer.

* You've never tasted Ice House beer, you can't tell the difference in taste between Miller and Bud, and you buy Sam Adams because it costs more and therefore must taste better.

* At the end of the month, after you've paid the bills and bought the groceries, your checking-account balance comes to at least $1,000.

* You've never used the 1040 short form to figure your taxes.

* You're retired and you've never sat down to figure out whether your Medi-Gap insurance is worth the premiums.

* You have at least one credit card with a limit of $15,000 or more, and you still have $5,000 worth of credit left.

* You go into Wal-Mart only to use the restrooms.

* You buy a new set of tires while the old ones still have treads.

* You have broadband Internet, satellite TV with all the premium channels, a land line with unlimited long-distance and a cell phone for each family member.

* You don't know how to use a telephone card.

* You don't know how to use a coin-operated washing machine.

* Your house doesn't have axles and a trailer hitch.

I know a guy who can't tell you how many houses he owns. When one wears out, he tows it into the nearest field and leaves it. It's impossible to count them now; they're all covered with kudzu.

He isn't running for president. And he eats collards instead of arugala.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 317 Braeburn Drive, Anderson SC 29621 or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@AOL.com