Barack Obama clearly wishes he hadn't said what he did about the feelings of small town Pennsylvanians -- at least the way he explained it at that fundraiser in San Francisco. (Note to the candidate: there is no such thing as a "closed" event; there's always someone with an electronic device ready to blog on The Huffington Post).
Obama's not running for Sociologist-in-Chief. But there is a powerful element of truth in his comments. Starting in the elder Bob Casey's 1986 campaign for Governor, and again and again since, both James Carville and I have heard or read -- from focus groups or polling reports -- the frustration, anger, and yes, sometimes bitterness of people in depressed towns in the Keystone State who've had politicians promise them help that too seldom comes. Even in the Clinton years, when Pennsylvania gained jobs, the hollowed out economies of once-thriving blue collar communities were largely bypassed.
The political question here, of course, is whether the Clinton and McCain campaigns can exploit Obama's remarks to tag him as an "elitist" -- a label, their focus groups probably tell them, that can really hurt. Ironically, Obama's the one raised by a single mother. He's the one who only recently finished paying off his student loans. He doesn't know what it's like to have $100 million. The opponents who are attacking him are the ones who inhabit that financial neighborhood.
Hillary Clinton has seized happily on Obama's words as a way to distract attention from the latest flight of one of her husband's misguided missiles. Just as the video that irrefutably confounded her tale about sniper fire at the Tuzla Airport was being returned to the network vaults, President Clinton's ill-timed and inaccurate account of the episode rewound and replayed the tapes. Then Obama's talk gave her the chance to push the pause button. But now she has to be careful not to push the "elitism" attack too hard. The Clintons haven't lived in the real world for at least twenty-five years; they've been in a bubble surrounded by aides moving from one mansion to another. This doesn't mean they don't care or can't empathize. But it does make it awkward to damn the guy who was a community organizer helping laid-off steelworkers as someone who is out of touch.
The truth is that Obama didn't "demean" -- Senator Clinton's word -- the aggrieved residents of the forgotten Pennsylvania. Remarkably, he did demean not just the Bush, but the Clinton administration for letting them down. And by citing guns, religion, and opposition to immigration as things small town Pennsylvanians "cling to," he confused the comfort of the familiar with fear of "the other." Of course, faith and culture are refuges in distress -- and they should be. Obama knows and says that.
So his sociology wasn't clearly or ideally stated, but it was fundamentally right. The impact will be determined as Obama returns to Pennsylvania and then critically in the back and forth of the debate on Wednesday night. What he said in San Francisco was very different from Gary Hart's gaffe in 1984, when he lost the New Jersey Primary and the Democratic nomination by apparently comparing that state to a toxic waste dump -- at a fundraiser in, of all places, California. Will Pennsylvanians instead decide that Obama wasn't condescending to them, but empathizing with them -- and that their plight would be his mission as president?
No one gets to the nomination without going through the valley. Hillary Clinton and John McCain have learned that this year, and so has Barack Obama. Now he has to do it a second time, on another controversy. It's a test for him, for Clinton, and for the voters.
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Loved this article. It says everything i was thinking but couldn't quite articulate to the people who screamed "ELITEST".
About this flap about guns & religion, etc., has anyone thought of the simple fact that for many people, their guns are a source of part of their food supply? Deer hunters provide excellent meat for the table, and things like rabbit and squirrel, pheasant, partridge, and waterfowl are also extremely good eating. To cling to what you depend on because you KNOW you can provide for your family with that is no forgotten thing for many of us. I am not a believer so know nothing about the religion aspect of it but I know many people who seem to find some comfort in attending church. In a day when one's government pays mega-bucks to nasty excuses for human beings to think of new ways to put the screws to the working class, isn't it time to say the hell with the bullshit of "political correctness" and call it like it is? I don't live in Pennsylvania, I live in a little New England town and I am bitter as hell! Heating oil is $4.00 a gallon, filling the oil tank costs $1,100.00! That is more than $100 MORE than I make in a month! Do the politicians care? Of course not, any more than they will care or pay for my body's disposal if I die of exposure because I can't afford to keep warm. Yes, I'm bitter! Thanks, Senator Obama, for having the guts to speak out.
deminohio nailed it - Barak Obama was a community organizer in the part of Chicago where the impact of steel plant shutdowns decimated entire communities, families, and ultimately a huge part of our nation. He KNOWS people are bitter - they were betrayed by both parties, the government in general, and the corporations that made money BY shutting down and abandoning them. Hell - I'm bitter, and I did not have my entire life work dependent on those industries. He got it right, he understands people who pulled back into what gave them certainty and comfort. It may have been misguided, but it is entirely understandable when there were no alternatives. He is no elitist - he walked the walk, and few other candidates can say that. No - he's not our 'sociologist in chief' but he does have genuine understanding and empathy, and only Dennis Kucinich can say the same. I for one appreciated his compassion and his comprehension.
Well, boys and girls, it's time to start name-calling and mud-slinging again. My God! You'd think Sen Obama had said something that's not true. When are these political windbags going to open their eyes and discover that, indeed, many people have become very bitter?
That's not all Obama said.
I am looking at the quote attributed to Obama in several ways. Here are two:
1) As an insight in Obama's own psyche. I have noticed that many people, including myself, hypothesize and then conclude that other's have taken certain actions for a given reason, because we in similar situations have either acted that way or been tempted to act that way. I can conclude that Barack Obama has reacted or been tempted to react with bitterness at times in his life to economic struggle and that he has, or been tempted to, turn to violence, religion and blaming those different from him. His statement thus offends because it does not seemed based in experience with other people, but in assuming that other people react exactly as he has. Of course I am subjecting Obama to the same process he stands accused of subjecting individual small town Americans to.
2) I can do a quick check of my instinctive reaction to the statement and investigate my own biases. It was after all a statement of alleged fact, of which I have no real direct experience. So if I accept it or decry it, doesn't that merely show what my leanings are? I don't know the people of Pennsylvania or small town America in any great numbers. I therefore have no objective gauge to criticize the comments except those other "facts" or generalizations I have implicitly accepted over the years.
Wouldn't you grant some weight to the fact that Obama has worked to organize a community economically depressed by steel factory closures. Is it possible that he may have gained insight into the challenges associated with political organization with a group who has been let down by government and find some measure of strength in voting social issues. His organizational efforts have been linked to the reasons behind his joining Trinity as a way of connecting to the people he was trying to organize. I suspect that Barack is a thoughtful person who is uniquely qualified to make these types of comments, and I'll admit that he mangled the delivery and offended the very people he was trying to empathize with. I'm not sure that I have seen anything in the way this guy has run the campaign to this point, and I would say that his better angels have been challenged, to suggest that he was trying to offend. I think we could all agree that it is possible to say offensive things without the intent to do so.
Maybe the error was in delivery. I tend to think, given the alleged audience (I really only know what people have seemed to conclude about that audience from its San Francisco locale) that the remark was actually a defense of the small town people, an attempt at humanizing them to people for whom their way of life might be foreign. People have reasons, it seems to say, and those are natural human reactions. And his attempt at explaining normal human reactions is also a normal human reaction. The problem with the discourse these days is that such a normal human search for understanding other people gets frozen in the very first hypothesis a person offers, as if one has categorized people in a bigoted or stereotypical way, rather offering a possible explanation subject to revision. If only he had phrased it less specifically, such as "In hard times people cling to what they know..." it would have been factually equivalent, and utterly ignored.
Everybody I know, people of all kinds including poor whites, think that he hit the nail on the head. That is only thing he is guilty of. Hillary making a big deal of this thing is only going to hurt her. It makes her look like a hysterical nit picker.
The fact that you see nothing wrong in what Obama said and that you blame Hillary for his fall from grace tell me one thing. You have supported Obama through all his lies and misrepresentations and will never change your mind. Others, like me, will never change their minds about him either. He held a press conference on March 3 and I would like to share some of it with you and the address so you can read it for yourself. It was written by Chuck Todd, just so you know it will be absolutely fair.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/03/726268.aspx
Questions centered on why his campaign had denied that a meeting occurred between his chief economic advisor and Canadian officials as well as questions on his relationship with Tony Rezko, a Chicago land developer and fast food magnate, now on trial for corruption charges.
These are other issues Hillary should bring up. I hope she will continue to hammer him until everyone sees he is unknown, untested and not ready to be president
Furelise, you've been had. The story of the Canadian meeting you refer to (sometimes referred to as NAFTAgate) has been roundly and credibly proven to be a hollow lie. The back-room shenanigans--Obama supposedly secretly signalling to the Canadian PM that his opposition to NAFTA "should be taken with a grain of salt" were an out and out lie, told to disguise the fact that it was the Clinton campaign that had made the Canadian overtures. Do a little research for yourself, and you'll find this to be so. Regarding Rezko, Clinton-backed opposition researchers have been working for over a year to discover any evidence of corruption, and have come up with absolutely zip.
Again, furelise, you've been had.
American education has taught intellectual helplessness to its citizens through 12 years of public school. It has made them befuddled by and scared of science and technology. They see a special group that wins big when it succeeds and wins big when it fails, leaving the sad concequences for the guy at the bottom. Seeking solid ground most Americans became bottom dwellers. Obama spoke of himself as a white that is black enough to never forget what it's like to be helpless at the bottom. But he is white enough to know that whites are begining to suffer what blacks suffered so long and are just as angry, just as befudled and turn to Bible and gun to feel safe in a nation where nothing works anymore. Obama wants-- first and foremost-- concensus. From there he will rebuild America so it can defend itself against the Bush robber barons. Together is the key, not divided and swindled by the entrepreneurs-- French for takers in between. Obama will be sociologist-in-chief!
I remember what my mother used to say when she heard someone of poor character putting down someone else .She said the kettle is calling the pot black . I listened to Hillary use Obama's words against him calling him an elites and as my mom said it was the kettle calling the pot black . Really does Hillary have any room to call Obama an elites ? What has she or Bill really done for the poor working class in this country ? Name one thing . I bet you can't .
Do Hillary and Bill live like the blue collar workers ? Hell no ! They don't run in the same circles as the average joe. She went to a prestegious college ,,certainly not one the average Joe could afford to send their kid to. So would they be called elite by most peoples standards ? You bet your butt they would be. Do you honestly think Hillary understands the poor working class problems in this country ?
Heck no she doesn't but she has had enough years in politic's to know what to say to those people to make them think she understands them. Ever really listen to her talk ? Acording to her she has a story in every state about the hardships she has weathered or in the case where she wanted to look like she was capable of defending our country she had the BS story about Bosnia and the one about Ireland which
she demonstrates an understanding of the economic underpinnings of it all, and how that affects the american worker, and what the federal government role is in it all. what part of peace and prosperity did you not like from 1993 to 2001?
NAFTA
From the BBC Business section; 1/15/02 The booming economy and strict controls over government spending has meant that Mr Clinton also leaves office with the public finances in their strongest shape for decades.
The Office of Management and Budget is projecting a surplus of $5,000bn over the next 10 years, enough to pay off the entire Federal debt and fund Social Security, the state pension scheme, for several more decades.
But that position has been reached after a long political struggle.
Mr Clinton decided early in his term of office that debt reduction, rather than tax cuts, was the best way to preserve economic growth.
That policy, backed by Mr Greenspan, contributed to the close working relationship that developed between the Fed and the US Treasury - but left little scope for redistribution.
It also set the scene for a confrontation between Mr Clinton and Congressional Republicans over what spending to cut in order to reach a balanced budget.
After two government shutdowns when agreement could not be reached on the budget, one that lasted nearly six weeks, Mr Clinton appeared to win the battle - and the 1996 election.
Saving Social Security
Mr Clinton did manage to preserve spending on certain key programmes, most notably the huge and popular entitlement programmes for the elderly, Social Security and Medicare
I keep asking the same questions over and over again, but no one has the answers for me. First of all, I would like to say Hillary has put the blame for the economy on George Bush. Here are her reasons: George Bush's war has cost a trillion dollars: he has cut taxes on capital gains, stock dividends, estate taxes: for seven years, he has refused to veto pork barrel spending; under his administration, our government has borrowed money from China, Japan and even Mexico. When Pres. Clinton left office the budget was balance and there was a projected surplus. So why is he and by extension, his wife, blamed for the rotten state of the economy? and by Democrats? Why is Sen. Obama criticizing NAFTA in his speeches and saying something else to the Canadians and in debates. Does anyone really think , if Sen. Obama, had been a senator at the time, that he would have voted against the resolution with only seven other senators and not with the seventy three who voted for? Do any Obama supporters care that he is lying about his corp. donations? Can't you see the misogyny in the press and from the senator himself? He will not win Pa. He will not be the next president. He is what he is and Pa sees the truth. He is a phony, ambitious and unscrupulous man and everyone will know it before the convention in Aug.
The other things is, while Bill Clinton boasts about jobs growing in PA under him, he fails to mention that those jobs were not in those small towns. They tended to grow in the metro areas.
"Obama criticizing NAFTA in his speeches and saying something else to the Canadians and in debates."
Typical McClintonista Lies! The Clinton people were doing exactly what she accused Obama of, winking at the Canadians while saying she always opposed NAFTA (big lie).
And the McClintonistas even had their boy Mark Penn working on the Columbian Free Trade deal that McClinton says she opposes.
From NBC/NJ"s Aswini Anburajan
SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- Led by the Chicago press corps that has covered Obama for years, the candidate today faced a barrage of questions in what turned out to be a contentious news conference.
Questions centered on why his campaign had denied that a meeting occurred between his chief economic advisor and Canadian officials as well as questions on his relationship with Tony Rezko, a Chicago land developer and fast food magnate, now on trial for corruption charges.
Obama claimed that when he had first denied the meeting between Austan Goolsbee and any members of the Canadian administration he provided "the information that [he] had at the time." He added, "Nobody reached out to the Canadians to try to reassure them. They reached out, unbeknownst to the rest of us; They reached out to Mr. Goolsbee, who provided them with a tangible conversation and repeated what we've said on the campaign trail." When did the meeting take place? Why did the Canadian officials reach out? Did Goolsbee not come forward right away and admit the meeting to Campaign Manager David Plouffe and Obama when both denied it last week? These are questions that went unanswered as the press conference was cut short.
I am not sure what your point is. Nobody knows what was said in this meeting. Further the Canadians have stated that the idea of the reassurance was more than a bit innaccurate. I think he might have voted against the resolution but even in your question you elude to the fact that Hillary did in fact vote for the resolution for political purposes. I keep asking a question that I haven't gotten an answer to so I will let you take a crack at it. When has Hillary fought and won for anything other than her political life. She claims to have been against NAFTA but was unable to fight and win for its failure. She introduced universal health care but didn't win that. You have made the case on the Iraq vote but those seven or so senators you cite were courageous enough to make that stand. One example in her public life, of which she claims we should vote for her, where she stood up for something and won one for the American people.
I interpreted Obama's words for what they were: A simple statement that, after years of being screwed by Reagans, Bushes, and Clintons, an awful lot of Americans have the feeling that their government no longer represents them or their interests.
And so they turn to the history they know best: America's.
As guns provided the original Colonials with comfort when faced with the oppression and exploitation of a cold but more powerful ruling elite, so Pennsylvanians - and many, many other Americans - find comfort in their guns when faced with the exact same scenario today.
Curious that Obama could somehow be blamed for expressing Middle America's resentment of and bitterness towards the ruling elite that the Republicans - and one of the Clintons - "free traded" our country away to.
I've lived in and near blue collar PA, AL, FL, NC, and NE. There's nothing that Obama said that was in the least bit insulting to anyone who really listens to his words and not the pot shots and spin induced assumptions made on the news shows. In fact there is not one single insult unless gun ownership, concern of lost jobs to immigrants (often trumped up by politicians) and turning to church and its community when things are going badly (I know a lot of people who do this) are really bad things but even then he did not say they were.
But, heck, by all means, let the pundits, the ones who supported George Bush unwaveringly, tell you what to think. Don't listen for yourselves and carefully consider the words used and what they meant. The biggest problem with contemporary America is the way everything is reported by talking heads putting in their two cents (or vacuous wind) before we have a chance to actually determine what's been said much less what's going on without the spin merchants.
By the way, I'm from a strictly blue collar pair of parents. One from the south and from the north.
They both have no trust in Hillary Clinton or John McCain.
Rick
Your article claiming that Obama was raised by a single mother. He sounds very "un-elitist'. You need to get your facts straight. Obama was not raised by a single mother. He went to "elitist" schools from grammar school on. His Kenyan father left to go to Harvard and his mother didn't go with him. She married a fairly wealthy Indonesian and went to Indonesia. She was not the single mother struggling to raise her child the way you portray. Obama went to the same school as Suharto's grandchildren. Elitist on a level Americans only read about. Back to Hawaii he went to the best private schools in Hawaii and then on to Occidental in California because , I suspect, his drug use helped him mess up his school record and he probably couldn't qualify for the Ivy Leagues. Apparently he got his act together and got into Columbia. It is also easier to get into top schools as a transfer student then as a freshman that also probably helped Obama.
then on to Chicago and then to Harvard Law School. Elitist? I would say so. Far more than the middle class and lower middle Clintons. Their multi-millions came after the Presidency. Obama IS ALSO NOW A MULTI MILLIONAIRE - thanks to the Rezko's and I understand he can thank the people who backed his candidacy by buying his book by the case load and giving them away. His first year in the Senate his income hit seven figures.
Your coment is full of half truths and suppositions. What you said about Obama's life in Honolulu is simply untrue. Punahou High School in Honolulu is not an elitist school. It accepts students on the basis of their academic merit and achievement. I taught at a private girl's school in Honolulu during the time Obama attended Punahou. The girls were mostly from well-to-do white families with connections. Many of the girls attended the school because, despite their parents' wealth, they were not accepted by Punahou because their academic records were not good enough.
The tuition at Punahou now is $16,000/ yr and at the time $15,000. The other costs are covered by grants, however most people in this country have never know anyone who went to a private school for seven years costing that much. That is a total of $105,000 which is more than small college four year education. If you lived in Honolulu, you should know that. That is not supposition, it is a fact.
This sounds as bad as Joe Scarburough saying tonight on Race for the Whitehouse that Obama is "too celebral" What the hell does that mean anyway?? And this sounds to me that you are criticising Obama becouse he is well educated. Am I reading your post correctly?? Should our president not be inteligent, I mean we have had a dumbass for over seven years and he has done lots of damage both nationally and internationally.
Futhermore why have we allowed the GOP to define "elitist" for us, how did this become so negative. The point is the president of the USA should be extremely inteligent, respectable, diplomatic and dare I say an elitist.
Oh, and the president should also be trustworthy and credible, which of course would exclude Hillary.
I have no idea what Scarburough meant, but it is irrelevant. Obama is intelligent AND condescending. There have been many comments like yours about Hillary on different blogs and I want some PROOF. I will give you Bosnia. She lied and she got caught, she faced it and everyone except Obama's supporters have moved on. These are the lies Obama has told which have been dismissed by him and his campaign and most of the press. This morning, in a speech, he made a reference to Sen. Clinton's corp. donors. In a debate, Sen. Edwards confronted him re. his own corp. assistance. His explanation, his donors were from individuals in those companies. In other words, bundled. He has attacked Sen. Clinton re. NAFTA, but in every debate he has said he would not opt out, and that is more or less what his economic advisor told the Canadian Consul (Sen. Obama lied about that). He was asked in a debate about the donation by Tony Rezko to his senate campaign. He said he recieved $100,000 and "most" of it was given to charities. Last month, before his record had to be made public, he disclosed he had, in fact, recieved $250,000. Over $80,000 of that was not accounted for. He said his parents met and he was concieved as a result of the riots in Selma, Al. In fact, he was born FOUR YEARS before Selma. Credible?
Good morning Furelise heres a post I thought you would find enlightening...and also disappointing
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/08/bill-clintons-ties-to-col_n_95651.html
RISE AND SHINE IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP
Barack has not taken a SINGLE bundled contribution. Bundled contributions come Political Action Committees or PACs. PACs are what large corporations or associations use to bundle contributions for candidates. Barack has received his money, more than 90% of it now, from individual donors at about a $100 a pop. Your girl and McCain are leveraged to the hilt to lobbyist and PAC cash.
You really need to do a little more research on how all this works before posting gibberish.
As for your other falsehoods, well, they are every bit as misleading and out-and-out lies. Like the Canada NAFTA story which as refuted by the Canadian government more than once. The Selma reference (without attribution I might add) is a complete fabrication. In case you can't use Google, however, Selma's Bloody Sunday was March 7, 1965. Barack was born in 1961.
That you aren't paying close attention to the details is painfully obvious by your posts. Either that, or you are like your candidate and think repeating lies over and over will make them true.
As she is finding out so will oyu - not this year, not this time. Welcome to the 21st Century.
Obama was born in Hawaii, went to school in Indonesia, and attended Harvard. He has never really been in the mainstream of America and he certainly has never experienced the experience of Blacks in the South, or Urban areas, or ghettos. Of course, he will explain how he sees Pennsylvanians as a sociologist. He doesn't know any better.
Bob Shrum is so transparent in his need to defend Obama. He wants to defuse the whole issue quickly. Maybe he wants a chance to join the Obama campaign.
You idiot ,white supremacy isn't domicile to America, it's worldwide. never been outta your appalachian hills huh?
Posted April 13, 2008 | 05:00 PM (EST)