How perfectly demagogic, which is so typically democratic.
Barack Obama utters a less than attractive truth about the American working class which historians, sociopsychologists, anthropologists, theologians, economists and political scientists have been writing for decades and his opponent pounces with feigned outrage and panders with saccharine homilies.
Should Sen. Obama fail to make it to the White House, it will only be by virtue of his being too damned dumb to know he's too damned smart for the Reagan Democrat crowd.
Barack Obama's comments about the bitterness of Americans let down by their government has prompted derision from the Clintons, John McCain and the Congressional Republicans, who are all saying roughly the same thing. Is it good for Democratic politics to have message discipline between Hillary Clinton and the GOP?
The motives behind the attacks on Obama are also similar. Of course Clinton is trying to deny Obama the nomination. She can't win, as is obvious to anyone who can figure out the delegate math, unless Obama drops out. So this is just another pathetic attempt at what the journalist Elizabeth Drew, writing about Clinton's tactics in this campaign, calls "molehill politics." If Obama is eventually seen as unelectable, then he'll have to step aside and, apparently according to the Clinton team, Clinton will become the nominee. At this point, that's her only way of winning the nomination.
So molehill politics it is, trying to create a controversy where there is none, trying to distort Obama's statements, and trying to deny the truth in what he said in favor of pushing sunny nostrums about how people getting screwed by our economic system of the last 40 years are upbeat, optimistic and resilient (all while jobs leave their communities, their kids leave home for big cities or become soldiers because they can't afford to become students, homeowners and parents, and they feel the government hasn't done a damn thing to help them out).
I live in western Pennsylvania, and I can tell you, people here are bitter and angry. Poverty is prevalent. People hunt squirrels and eat them, along with racoon stew. People also hunt deer here, not for sport, but so they can put meat in their freezer so they can feed their families. They cut wood in the forests and heat their homes with wood stoves because they can't afford to pay the gas bill. I know a guy who goes to old landfills to dig up old milk and beer bottles to sell on eBay. He uses the proceeds to buy clothes for his family at the Salvation Army (and to pay for his dial-up connection).
Racism and prejudice are ever-present here. A friend of mine is part-owner of bar in a small rural town south of where I live. I meet up with him there occasionally and watch as down-and-out people come in with their disability and welfare check money and drink it away. It's a pretty depressing place, but it does serve as the social center for a town that has seen its few industries shut down and the local people's jobs eliminated or shipped off elsewhere.
I hear the usual rants there, that it's all the fault of gays and minorities and immigrants (although those aren't the terms used, but rather the usual, virulent slurs). A black man walked in the last time I was there, and a guy near me at the bar muttered in a not-so-quiet way, "What's he think he's doing in here?" When I brought up the presidential race and Obama with another man at the bar, his response was, "there ain't no way America is ever going to vote for a black guy." Later on my bar-owner friend told me about his experience talking about Obama with another woman at the bar, and her angry response was that "it's because of half-breed n*****s like him that America is in such bad shape today."
Prejudice, racism and fear do run rampant in areas like this. People are poor. They are in bad health, overweight from a deep-fried diet, and toothless from the lack of dental care. They are unemployed. They are uneducated. They do cling to their hunting rifles and to their religious beliefs. For many, it is about all that they have. The towns around here are full of decaying, boarded up buildings. People live in rundown old trailers with abandoned cars in the front yard. I have seen people using an old car as a stable, with their goat tied to and living in it. I could drive you by a least three old houses that have Conderate flags in the windows.
So go ahead and discount Obama's talk of how bitter and angry that some of the people of rural Pennsylvania are. Call him elitist for taking the time to pass through areas such as this to listen to what the people have to say, and to then relate what he has heard to people in more prosperous parts of the country when he is asked about it. I have lived in San Francisco, and let me tell you, there is a marked difference between the general attitude there and the attitude here in the "rust belt". Go ahead and dismiss everything that Obama said as political posturing. Let Hillary and McCain "pick him apart" and parse his words. But please keep in mind that when Obama said:
"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."
that he is 100% accurate in his assessment.
I know, because I live here, my family and my friends' families have lived here for generations, and we see it every day, all around this region. There is a very fine line between poverty and prosperity here, where making above $20,000 a year puts you in the realm of the "haves", but also knowing that you're one contract termination away from joining the ranks of the "have-nots".
I come from a family of dairy farmers. I know what it's like to spend up to 12-16 hours a day sitting on a tractor for three dollars an hour, which I did through high school and every summer until I was fortunate enough to head off to college. Many of my friends were also fortunate and went to school, and then relocated to other parts of the country. Some of us were able to come back under better circumstances, but the large majority of people here are not as fortunate.