It Takes Real Chutzpah for a Guy Who Owns Eight Houses (McCain) to Call Barack Obama an "Elitist"

McCain doesn't lack "chutzpah." Yesterday his campaign actually accused Barack Obama of being an "elitist" for saying that it's not surprising that people in small Midwestern towns are bitter after seeing their standard of living systematically destroyed over the last three decades.

Damn right they're bitter; they have good reasons to be. And most of those reasons are the economic and trade policies that have -- and continue to be -- championed by George Bush and John McCain.

The McCain campaign is managed by a cadre of Washington-insider special interest lobbyists. He and his current wife are estimated to be worth about $100 million. He reportedly owns eight houses. His let-them-eat-cake economic policies are based on George Bush's failed radical conservative "you're on your own buddy" philosophy. One after another he supported trade agreements that protect the rights of corporations, but ignore the rights of labor, and have devastated one Pennsylvania community after another. He gets most of his campaign cash from the wealthiest corporate interests around. And he has the gall to call Barack Obama an "elitist"?

This is the same Barack Obama who spent years of his life organizing out-of-work steelworkers on the south side of Chicago -- people just like those who live in Allentown or Erie or Pittsburgh or the Monongehela Valley in western Pennsylvania. He stood shoulder to shoulder with them, sat at their kitchen tables, spent hours in their church basements.

He didn't do those things as a famous candidate, but as a community organizer being paid $8,000 a year by a coalition of churches. You don't build a resume or a client list organizing unemployed steel workers. You do it because you respect the people and you care about justice.

In fact, the trademark of Barack Obama's campaign for president is the honest, respectful way he talks to everyone -- and stands up for everyday Americans.

If you want to talk about patronizing, or "elitism", you need look no farther than the way Bush and McCain attempt to use fear and division to divert the attention of middle class people from the economic policies that pick their pockets, lower their wages, destroy their unions, and outsource their jobs. And all the while they use our money to bail out Wall Street, and give giant tax breaks to the real "elitists" -- the economic elite.

It is Barack Obama who can lead a movement to change the way things are done in Washington. He can do it by empowering and inspiring the people who live in small-town Pennsylvania, and all of the other middle class Americans who have been left out by Bush-McCain policies that have benefited the "masters of the universe" on Wall Street and the Gucci-shoed lobbyist set on "K" Street.

As for Hillary Clinton, who joined in attacking Obama's statement: she should know better. She knows that Obama is the furthest thing from an elitist, and she should know better than to join in the Republican narrative about the candidate who is the likely Democratic standard bearer in the fall.

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist and author of the recent book: "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win," available on amazon.com.

Comments

[rovezaleeker]

Where is Vicki Iseman?

[Kundera]

hopefully meeting with lawyers to sue the NY Times for their slander.

[excitablerooster]

Are her Lawyer's offices located in McCain's bedroom?

[Populista]

Amen!

It also takes real chutzpah for someone who has made over 100 million dollars in the past few years to attack someone who was paying off student loans a few years ago as a "elitist"

[myskylark]

You don't understand the meaning of elite. It doesn't have to have anything to do with money. It has to do with an attitude toward others, and the belief that you are intrinsically better than they are by class, or by education, or by sophistication. Why are you people's knowledge of English so primitive? I'm beginning to feel elitist towards you.

[Ed2008]

... intrinsically better than they are by class, or by education, or by sophistication.

"By class" What's the primary definition of "class". It's essentially a function of how wealthy you are. So right in your rebuttal you prove the point that you were trying to disprove.

[Citizen54]

Excuse me, but here's the dictionary definition of the word "elite":

a: the choice part or segment; esp: a socially superior group. b: a powerful minority group

Ain't able to find no dictionary that mentions "attitude toward others" in its definition.

The fact is, a couple worth $100 million can certainly, and fairly, and apolitically be described as "elite." They belong to a very small group within our society (the group that our government represents).

[SouthAustin]

You are the one that needs to bone up on English. Actually it feels good to point this out to you since English is my second language. I actually know English better than someone who is in all likelihood a native speaker, and who has stated without equivocation that their superior knowledge of English puts them in a special category desrving of special treatment ! Wow ! I'm honored ! So now it's time for English lessons from a non native speaker. Elitism is NOT a feeling of superiority, it is a feeling of entitlement. People who are elitist may often feel superior but what makes them elitist is the belief that they deserve to be treated differently because of heredity, status, money etc. So for example, John McCain and his millionaire buddies felt that they should be able to start their own banks and the Federal Government should bail them out when they squander depositors money. Remember Keating ?

[wearyvoter]

Maybe it would be better if he learned to speak in bumper stickers instead of complex sentences.

[23000Days]

Y'mean "uppity", as in Blazing Saddles?

[Donald]

"Paying off student loans a few years ago"? The man is 47 years old. Whatever loans he had to have been retired well over a decade ago.

Further, Sen. Obama is hardly a child of the American inner city. Rather, he is a graduate of the oldest and perhaps most prestigious prep school west of the Rocky Mountains (Punahou '79, Honolulu, HI). His maternal grandparents, who raised "Barry" Obama for six years during his secondary school years in Hawaii, were both successful businesspeople, and therefore not without considerable means at their disposal.

Personally, I find that it takes real chutzpah for Obama to feign empathy for inner city black Americans, when for eight years as an Illinois state legislator he facilitated their abuse at the hands of his chief fundraiser, developer Tony Rezko, by turning a blind eye to the numerous substandard "affordable" housing projects Rezko built, renovated and managed throughout the 13th Senatorial District.

So therefore, I suggest that we just call this particular bout of pre-adolescent name-calling a wash, and move on to more substantive issues than who made more money when.

[TheOtherMaven]

"Donald" says:
" "Paying off student loans a few years ago"? The man is 47 years old. Whatever loans he had to have been retired well over a decade ago."

Don't bet on that. It's not nearly as easy as you think. Many people DON'T get to retire their student loans until they're 50 or 60 or more - and some don't EVER get to retire them. Believe me, I know this all too well!!!!

[AreYouFibbing]

....and I suppose you would like us to be crying for your boy. From nothing to 100 million dollars...­isn't that the American dream? And, I guarantee you it is exactly what Obammie will be doing soon.