By Philip Klein on 4.14.08 @ 12:08AM
He's a divider, not a uniter.
In his most eloquent speeches, Barack Obama has spoken of
America as a "magical place" comprised of hard working people who
share the same core values despite racial, geographic, and economic
divisions.
Last week, at a private fundraiser for wealthy donors outside of
San Francisco, Obama struck a much different tone when ruminating
on his failure to make headway among working class voters.
Suddenly, typical small town Americans morphed into bitter souls,
clutching their Bibles in one hand, their guns in the other, and
with binoculars dangling from their necks to detect invading
Mexicans.
The instantly explosive remarks could represent a turning point
in the presidential campaign. Obama's strength as a politician was
rooted in his promise to shatter the red state/blue state deadlock
that has characterized the last several presidential election
cycles.
He has aimed to reach out to independents, religious voters, and
even Republicans, who have been dubbed "Obamacans." Now it is more
likely his candidacy will reignite the cultural tensions he hoped
to diffuse.
"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..." Obama said on April 6,
in remarks that weren't known until the Huffington Post
discovered them on Friday.
"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."
The use of the verb "cling to," which negatively connotes a
desperate emotional attachment to something, was a particularly
galling way of belittling people's commitment to the Second
Amendment and the importance of religion in their lives.
In his book The Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote that his
fellow progressives "need to take faith seriously not simply to
block the religious right but to engage all persons of faith in the
larger project of American renewal."
But last Sunday, in a moment of candor, he put religion in the
same negative context as xenophobia and hatred of immigrants.
Furthermore, his dismissal of "anti-trade sentiment" exposes the
phoniness of his protectionist promises to voters in Ohio.
Obama later tried to spin his way out of it. He claimed he meant
that "people don't vote on economic issues because they don't
expect anybody is going to help them" so they vote on issues like
guns and gay marriage.
THOUGH OBAMA POINTS TO cultural issues as the reason why he is
having problems attracting working class voters, it simply does not
make sense that those issues would cause him problems in the
primaries.
First, there is a smaller concentration of gun rights and values
voters in Democratic primaries. Second, his opponent holds
virtually the same positions on all of those issues.
Many Beltway pundits shrugged off the importance of Obama's
comments by noting that he was simply reiterating author Thomas
Frank's thesis that working class voters vote Republican, against
their own economic interests, because of cultural issues.
This just reinforces why Obama has a problem with those voters
in the first place. He grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia and spent
his adult life in either an academic or urban setting. His approach
to understanding small town America is cerebral. It's natural that
he would find it more difficult to connect with this part of the
electorate.
Many of the discussions he likes to engage in, such as the
current topic of controversy, are typical of late night bull
sessions one would have at a university. It isn't surprising that
in addition to black voters, his most solid constituencies are
among young college students and well-educated adults.
The Illinois senator's comments feed into a growing narrative
that includes his wife's remark that her husband's campaign
represented the first time she had been proud of America and the
Jeremiah "Goddamn America" Wright fiasco.
Obama has promised to be a transformational liberal leader, who
has the potential to transcend partisan politics and cobble
together a coalition not only to win an election, but also to
advance a progressive agenda once elected.
The best bet Republicans have for beating Obama is to convince
voters that beyond the lofty rhetoric and new packaging, he's just
the same old liberal they've rejected for decades. Obama just made
that job a whole lot easier.
topics:
Trade, Barack Obama, Religion, NATO
