Primary Loyalties
If this whole “bittergate” flap actually winds up hurting Obama, (and so far, it is too early to tell), it will be another proof that people don’t really want an honest politician, but actually prefer the lies and pandering.
Here’s what Obama said that’s has caused the furor:
But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
This isn’t rocket science, and it shouldn’t even be controversial. When people are under stress, particularly economic stress, you hang on hard, “cling” if you will, to those things that are most important to you. Family, friends, faith, culture, and race. These become your touchstones to how you identify yourself. As for the anti-immigrant or anti-trade sentiments, the “Us versus Them” mentality is pretty much hard-wired into the species.
In fact, that’s the exact sentiment the Clinton and McCain campaigns are trying to exploit with Obama’s remarks, by trying to pretend that they’re the ones in touch with small-town America while Obama is some kind of effete liberal snob.
John Baer has a few thoughts on the matter:
SOME THOUGHTS on the latest diversion of Campaign '08, a campaign apparently hell-bent on keeping the nation mired in its own stupidity.
As a native-born, small-town Pennsylvanian, a son of native-born, small-town Pennsylvania parents - one from the coal region, one from Lancaster County - let me assure you that the so-called offensive, condescending things Barack Obama said about the people I come from are basically right on target.
"Bitter" perhaps best describes my late mother, an angry Irish Catholic who absolutely clung to her religion.
Dad, also a journalist, wasn't really bitter as far as I know, but he sure liked to hunt.
So, despite carping from Hillary Clinton and annoying yapping from her surrogates (really, it's like turning on the lights at night in a puppy farm), I take no offense.
. . .
They've been taken for granted by political parties and candidates who stay in power by - and this was the apparent gist of Obama's remarks - forcing attention and debate on issues tied to guns, religion and race (precisely because such issues resonate) rather than real problems such as health care and the economy.
. . .
What's insulting is the ongoing failure of elected "leaders" to deal with long-term, working-class worries while insuring their own futures with hefty, over-rich pensions.
And, look, what Obama said, given a charged atmosphere close to a critical primary, was ill-advised - not because he's wrong, but because it changes the discussion.
The 24-hour broadcast-news cycle will jabber on this for days - the irony being that Obama's "words," which had positioned him so well, now threaten to trip him up.
Another irony is that the candidate running to effect change where change is needed, and to offer hope to those without it, is suddenly tagged as somehow diminishing those he seeks to serve.
So the question is whether Obama effectively defuses this, as he did the controversy surrounding his former minister. And that remains to be seen.
Just don't tell me that he insulted a state or, given his background, that he's an out-of-touch elitist.
And I especially don't want to hear such arguments from a candidate who spent decades in the bubble of a governor's mansion, the White House and the U.S. Senate, and under the blanket of $109 million income during the last eight years.
Pennsylvanians might cling to religion and guns. I hope they don't cling to stupidity.
Given the reaction to Obama and Clinton when they brought up the remarks yesterday; I think it may be that people are finally getting tired of the pandering.
In the meantime, McCain can take a vacation as Clinton continues to field-test his campaign for the fall.
