Barack Obama showed his deft political touch today, and demonstrated his keen insight into the lives of the little people in this country, with a speech that is sure to be worth at least thirty points in Pennsylvania in the upcoming primary:
You go into 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 it’s not surprising then 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.
I asked around the area, to see how his obvious compassion for Pennsylvanians was viewed. This is just one story, from one man in West Deer Township, but I’m sure that it’s typical.
“By cracky, it’s like the man sees into my very soul!
“Thirty years ago, I had a good job in the mill in Pittsburgh. I was bringing in a good income, going to jazz clubs, discussing Proust over white wine and brie, with my gay friends of all colors. I was all for free trade, so that we could sell the steel overseas, and I never bothered to go to church, let alone actually believe in God.
“But then, the plant closed down, and I couldn’t get another job. I went on unemployment, and found odd jobs here and there, but they barely paid the rent on the loft, and the payment on the Bimmer. I couldn’t afford the wine and brie any more, and had to shift over to beer and brats.
“Of course, as a result, I started hanging out with the wrong crowd–the beer drinkers.
“And it wasn’t just the beer. Some of them actually went out in the woods in the fall, and shot animals. And kilt ’em. With real guns!
“I was shocked, of course. For all their diversity, none of my gay friends would have ever thought of doing anything like that. But with my job loss, and lack of money for pedicures and pommade, they didn’t want to hang with me any more. So I borried a twelve gauge over’n’under, and went out with my new beer-drinking animal-killing friends in the woods. And I’ll tell you what, when I shot down that eight-pointer, I felt a sense of power over the helpless in a way that I hadn’t since I’d been looking down on the rednecks when I had that good job in Pittsburgh, driving around town in my 528i.
“But somehow the killing, and hating those two-timing nancy boys wasn’t enough. I was still in despair. I started to search for answers, and I thought that I found them in Jesus. It started small, just church on Sunday, with prayers and a lecture from the preacher.
“But it didn’t stop there. Soon I was attending Wednesday night revivals, and huzzahing and hossanahing, and babbling with the best of them. After a few months I’d graduated to juggling garter snakes, then rattlers.
“But it wasn’t enough. Despite all the gun caressing, and animal killing, and hatred of people who weren’t like me, and anger at the Colombians who were…doing something to me–I’m not entirely sure what, and the tongue speaking and snake handling, I still couldn’t find a job.
“My social life continued to deteriorate. Not only was I no longer interested in those sensitive swishes, or literature, but I was starting to look with lust at my sister. And not just look, I’ll tell you what. She’d been out of work, too, and was getting mighty interested, if you know what I mean.
“I have hit rock bottom.
“Please, help me, O Bama. Forgive me, O Bama. O Bama, my Bama, rescue me from this living hell in which Reagan, and Bush, and Clinton, and Bush, have consigned me. Restore unto me my loft and my teutonic status symbol. Give me back my poofter friends, and my pinot grigio and my baked gruyere, and lattes. Save me from the killing and the beer, and most of all, from Jesus. Save me, O my Bama, and I will commit my vote unto you.
This is just one story of the many lives that Barack Obama has touched, and blessed, this day in the benighted Keystone State. But with his obvious compassion, and ability to feel the pain of others so unlike him, he is sure to carry the state in a couple weeks.
[Late evening update]
Ace has more:
Obama To Rural Pennsylvanians: Vote For Me, You Corncob-Smokin’, Banjo-Strokin’ Chicken-Chokin’ Cousin-Pokin’ Inbred Hillbilly Racist Morons
Yeah, that’s about it.
[Saturday morning update]
More from Mickey Kaus:
Excuse me? Hunting is part of working-class American culture. Does Obama really think that working-class whites in Pennsylvania were gun control liberals until their industries were downsized, whereas they all rushed to join the NRA …
I used to think working class voters had conservative values because they were bitter about their economic circumstances–welfare and immigrants were “scapegoats,” part of the false consciousness that would disappear when everyone was guaranteed a good job at good wages. Then I left college. …
…Rather than trying to spin his way out, wouldn’t it be better for Obama to forthrightly admit his identity? Let’s have a national dialogue about egghead condescension!
[Mid-Saturday morning update]
This is turning out to be the Blazing Saddles election:
It’s amazing how many lines from that movie work for this campaign.
The first question Obama got in Iowa
What’s a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?
Explaining the Iowa caucus to newcomers
Now, I suppose you’re all wondering just what in the heck you’re doing out here in the middle of a prairie in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.
Crowd: You bet your ass.Despite setbacks, Mike Gravel stays in the race
no sidewindin bushwackin, hornswaglin, cracker croaker is gonna rouin me bishen cutter.
Obama’s campaign theme
He conquered fear and he conquered hate He turned dark night into day.
Hillary rounds up her operatives
I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.
Ezra Klein hears a speech
God darnit…you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.
Obama after every press appearance
Ooh, baby, you are so talented! And they are so DUMB!
Obama explaining his post-racial appeal
Well, to tell the family secret, my grandmother was Dutch.
But Hispanics are skeptical of Obama and his supporters
Hast du gesehen in deine Leben? They’re darker than us!
The party’s new reaction to Hillary
Shut up, you Teutonic tw@t!
The anguish of the superdelegates
We’ve gotta protect our phoney baloney jobs, gentlemen!
and of course for the current situation
You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Oooh, oooohhh, there’s more! I found Obama’s Facebook page. Note that one of his favorite books is one about an obsessive hatred of a white whale.
So, is a cigar just a cigar? I report, you decide.
[Update a few minutes later]
One more (more serious) thought. When Obama talks about “clinging to religion,” is he saying that his religious belief is founded in something other than economic hardship? Or is he implying that, despite his words and church attendance for the past twenty years, that he’s at heart an agnostic, if not an atheist? Was the church thing all for political show (as it was with at least Bill, if not both Clintons)? And of course, if these are his true feelings (and I suspect that one is more likely to hear what he really thinks when he perceives himself to be among a friendly audience), then it’s not surprising that he could sit through twenty years of Pastor Wright bigotry and hatred and find nothing exceptional or objectionable about it. He’s smart enough to know that others will find it so, so he pretends to be outraged when called on it, but he wasn’t smart enough to see how his remarks in this case would be viewed by those to whom he unconsciously condescends.
I think that this could be a campaign killer in the fall. That sound bite will be shown over and over again. I just regret that it came out this soon. Unfortunately, the Democrats still have a chance to eject him before he gets the nomination. But even if they do, it will still be an electoral disaster for them. The problem is that it isn’t just Obama. Most of them are just smart enough not to voice their bigotry publicly, but this is how much of the party itself views rural and middle America, and it’s going to hurt them all through the fall. And justly so.
[Late morning update]
Mark Steyn has further thoughts:
I had a ton of fun covering Kerry’s awkwardness with Americans but, in fairness, it was essentially a consumerist snobbery: he preferred the Newburgh Yacht Club for lunch over the local Wendy’s, he’d rather be windsurfing off Nantucket than rednecking at Nascar, etc. Obama’s snobbery seems more culturally profound, and unlike Kerry he can’t plead the crippling disadvantage of a privileged childhood. Rather, Barack’s condescension reveals a man out of touch with the rhythms of American life to a degree that’s hard to fathom. As Michelle says, they “chose” to “leave corporate America”, and Barack became a “community organizer” and she wound up a 350-grand-a-year “diversity outreach coordinator”. I’ve no idea what either of those careers involve, and most of us seem able to get along without them. But their remoteness from the American mainstream perhaps explains why the Obamas seem to have no clue how Americans live their lives.
And yes, I’m a foreigner. But it takes one to know one, and this guy seems weirdly disconnected from everything except neo-segregationist Afrocentric grievance politics and upscale white liberal condescension. Not much of a coalition.
But that’s the modern Democrat Party. Without the media (which is as elitist as they are) in their pocket, they’d never stand a chance.
[Early afternoon update]
Was Obama’s faux pas the sound of the horse beginning to clear its throat for its aria? This kind of thing is what keeps Hillary from dropping out.
[Another update a few minutes later]
And of course, Iowahawk has to pile on, with a golden oldie about rebellious youth:
Like most of their classmates, these North Shore Neckies were once bound for some of the top universities in America — Yale, Duke, Stanford, Northwestern — until they succumbed to the allure of the Downhome slacker lifestyle. Now some openly talk of dropping out, learning TIG welding, waiting tables at Waffle House or draining oil at Jiffy Lube; some even hint of enrolling at Iowa State. What drives privileged teens to such seemingly self-destructive behavior?
“I guess you might could say we’re rebels,” says Rachel ‘Tyffanie’ Stern, 17, lighting a Merit Menthol 100. Once destined for Vassar, Stern is now living with friends after her parents kicked her out of the house for spending her bat mitzvah money on a bass boat. Last month she became the youngest Jewish female to win an event on the Bassmasters Pro Tour.
Pausing for furtive glances, several of the teens share sniffs from a bottle of Harmon Triple Heat deer scent.
“Wooo-eee, shit howdy, that’s gonna bring a mess of them whitetail bucks,” says 19-year old Wei-Li ‘Lamar’ Cheung. A former Westinghouse Science Award winner, Cheung has devoted his chemistry and biology skill to building a fledgling hunting supply business.
A first generation Asian-American, Cheung says he was drawn to the group by their acceptance of minorities. “Hell, I kept tellin’ all my family and teachers I wanna play fiddle, not violin,” he explains. “The ‘Necks accept me the way I am.”
African-American Kwame ‘Joe Don’ Harris agrees. “Just because I’m black, teachers were always pushing me to go to Spellman to study Langston Hughes and Thelonius Monk,” says the 17 year old. “These ol’ boys here never laugh at my dream to be a crew chief for the Craftsman Truck Series.”
If there is one aspiration that unites them all, it is the dream of moving to Branson, Missouri. Long famed for its laid-back attitude toward religion, country music and the military, Branson has become a Mecca for radical young Neckies seeking an escape from the stultifying conformity of their coastal hometowns.
Only Barack can save us from this ongoing tragedy.
[Late afternoon update]
Obama is doing damage control with some of the yokelocals. I’m sure that Miss Hathaway will be able to smooth things over, except maybe with Grannie.
[Update on Sunday evening]
I’ve quit updating have some follow-up thoughts on Obama, and what this means about his attitudes toward individualism, here.
Adam: I can’t address everything you said, but I’ll this: One of the most frustrating things about this campaign is that people make the following kind of criticism: “Obama or McCain shouldn’t have said A because people will think he means B”. If they said and meant A, just focus on A, until the public understands he really was just saying A. Here, I’ll do it for the candidate I don’t support: McCain clearly wasn’t saying we’d be at war in Iraq for 100 years. Shame on Obama for ever implying otherwise. Kudos to Obama when he asks how to transform Iraq into a place like Germany or South Korea, which is a question that I think McCain would welcome. I find it frustrating when people say “McCain shouldn’t have ever said “100 years” and he is a dunderhead for giving the media a soundbite.” It might be true, but that’s not a reason to oppose McCain.
I think you are saying, in part, that Obama is a dunderhead for giving the media a soundbite. Maybe, this shouldn’t be a reason to oppose Obama.
Obama did NOT say say that bitterness was ” a main contributor towards people being religious, anti-trade, pro-gun, and bigots.”. He could have been more clear, and so he clarified his comment. He was explaining the voting behavior don’t feel like they have the option of voting their pocketbook. You can repeat this idea that Obama thinks people are religious because they are bitter all you want, but you’ll be just as wrong as the people who say “McCain wants 100 years of war”.
I apologize for the poorly edited text! I’ll try harder to proofread first.
Bob, you’re completely missing the point about what was so offensive about Obama’s remarks. Which is not surprising, because you, too, are a Democrat, and you, too, are tone deaf to such things.
He conflated being anti-trade, pro-gun, religious, and bigoted. Now that implies that these things are all similar in some way. They are either good traits, or bad traits, but the implication, and what it is clear that Obama, and much of the Democrat elite believe, based not just on this one foot-in-mouth incident, but many over the years is that these are bad things. Now I happen to believe that bigotry and opposition to trade are wrong, but I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with gun ownership (and use) or being religious.
But now we know what the Democrats think of ordinary people in this country. The notion that these double ungood thoughts are caused by economic deprivation are entirely beside the point. It was the bigotry of the elitist Democrats on display, and it wasn’t pretty. Now as it happens, Hillary believes this, too, but at least she’s savvy enough to lie about it, so she’ll be able to take big-time advantage of it.
While most people focus on the guns and religion part of Obama’s statements, the more interesting thing he said was about trade. It implies that he believes that the rubes are scaping goating free trade because of their economic problems. So is he pandering when he opposes free trade, or are the rubes right?
For the Marxist, everything comes down to economics. For people in the real world, the church, hunting and the like are not economic choices, but social ones.
When I read your interpretation of his remarks, I had the impression that you were arguing that his remarks were not a political misstep, and I was challenging that.
You are quite right that making a misstep doesn’t constitute a good reason to oppose a candidate.
I like your counterexample somewhat, although of course in McCain’s case the plain text of his statement doesn’t even imply he supports a 100 year war, in fact his very next sentence deliberately elaborates that he only supports our troops ‘staying’ there if they aren’t being harmed or killed.
Obama says:
“So it
Rand, you have it exactly right. When you are fighting the perception of your party as a party who thinks guns and religion are bad, the last thing you want to do is imply that they are equal to bigotry and protectionism.
Sort of like it’s bad to imply that babies are the same as STDs. No one really thinks he completely equates the two, but you put that in context with the pro-choice nature of the party, and it’s napalm. If a conservative made the same slip-up it wouldn’t be nearly as big a deal, because it’s a lot more plausible that it’s a not Freudian in the case of a conservative.
All the pols are making a lot of speeches, and gaffes, but it sure seems like Obama tends to get himself into trouble with comparisons. A cynic would say perhaps because he gets his tongue on a roll constructing his rhetorical edifices and the truth slips out if he fails to grip the hammer and chisel tightly at all times.
I can understand it when he’s sucking up to wealthy fundraisers in San Fran, but when he’s reading his great race speech off the teleprompter I wonder that one of his staff doesn’t just say “Hey Obama, how about we leave out the part where it looks like you’re saying your poor Grandma is comparable to your hate-spewing pastor”? He really does appear to be oblivious to the trouble these bad comparisons get him into.
I grew up in a small town (population 3,000) and still have friends and relatives there. I’m also a member of the National Rifle Association, and have been for decades.
Here’s the thing – Obama’s RIGHT. There are a lot of single-issue voters in small towns. They are people who lost a job when the factory closed, and would have to move hundreds of miles to get a similar job. (It’s no accident that I’m 150 miles from my hometown.)
There are a lot of people in small towns who don’t trust people from “over there,” wherever “over there” is. When a factory employing 2,000 people closes in a county with less then 100,000 residents, it’s an economic disaster, and all the “free trade” cheap TVs at Wal-Mart don’t make it better.
Since these folks are being ignored by Democrats and Republicans, they become single-issue voters. What Obama understands, and that idiot who wrote “What’s the Matter With Kansas” didn’t, is that if neither party will address one’s economic woes, then one votes based on other issues.
Rand said Bob, you’re completely missing the point about what was so offensive about Obama’s remarks. Which is not surprising, because you, too, are a Democrat, and you, too, are tone deaf to such things.
He conflated being anti-trade, pro-gun, religious, and bigoted. Now that implies that these things are all similar in some way. They are either good traits, or bad traits, but the implication, and what it is clear that Obama, and much of the Democrat elite believe, based not just on this one foot-in-mouth incident, but many over the years is that these are bad things.
Rand, you’re completely missing Obama’s pont, which is not surprising because you yourself are not a Democrat or a Republican. As a relatively disinterested third party, you fail to see Obama’s list of positions from a partisan zero sum perspective.
Obama never said or even implied that being anti-trade, pro-gun, religious, and/or being bigoted is bad (although of course everyone says that being bigoted is bad). He was saying that what those four traits have in common is that the Republicans have a lock on them! Now, lets pause, because saying that Republicans or their party has a lock on bigotry is controversial and argumentative (and untrue, in my opinion), but he was speaking to a partisan crowd.
In any case, Rand, I believe you misunderstood. Obama was making an argument for why people vote Republican. He was talking about the Democrat-Republican axis, not the Good-Bad axis.
As for being condescending, I just found this link:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Whats_the_matter_with_Pennsylvania.html
where there is a video of Obama discussing this very issue in 2004. He speaks out against being condescending, and he points out that he isn’t faking it when he talks about the importance of religion in his life. Ben Smith quotes him as saying “If we don’t have plausible answers on the economic front, and if we appear to be condescending toward those traditions that are giving their lives some stability, then they’re going to opt for at least that party that seems to be speaking to the things that…provide them with something solid to stand on,” he said, going on to talk about his ability to connect with voters who supported Bush over Kerry. Ben Smith quotes from 12:00 of the video, but I think it is worth starting about a minute and a half earlier. I haven’t watched the whole thing, but the parts surrounding 12:00 do have relevance to this conversation.
Except that I’m wrong, because Republicans aren’t historically anti-trade. Ooops. On the other hand, according to the Wall Street Journal 10/4/07 “By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy.”
I still think Obama was talking about why swing voters vote Republican, but I oversimplified.
Chris, you miss the whole point. There are one issue voters everywhere. Rural people aren’t different than anyone else, they just believe in things BO has no idea about and neither do the people at that event. The fact he was patronizing in his speech about them just made it worse and showed his elitism.
It’s amazing, time in the Ivy League caused him to aquire the elitist contempt for the common man, but not to shake the common man’s oppression induced hatred fed to him by Jeremiah Wright. He’s aquired both biases, and the press continues to ignore both and hail him as the great uniter. I do not believe this will stop him. I believe that the media’s 15%, combined with his fundraising edge over McCain, and the fact that he’s younger and hipper, will enable him to prevail. He’s got 7 months to correct all this. Here comes Black Carter.
Yeah Bob, he’s into religion at his “God damn America” church. No one I know goes to a church like that. I think we’re ALL still waiting for those “plausible answers”. I’m especially waiting for the ones that don’t raise my taxes at least 5-10%.
Anyone who claims that Obama is “right” or that what he said wasn’t offensive is every bit as clueless to the nature of most Americans as he is. His comment was dead wrong and absolutely offensive to anyone who cherishes our 1st and 2nd amendment rights.
Barack is just trying to explain to some fellow socialists why so many of the rural folks commit the thoughtcrime of voting Republican.
They simply cannot understand how anyone can disagree with their POV and Obama, as a man of the people, is trying to translate for them. Of course, his problem is he doesn’t have a clue how to speak or understand the language he is trying to translate, because he is absolutely not a man of the people in any sense of the word – he is a phoney huckster. So his translation or explanation is completely tone-deaf.
Dadblast it Rand! Warn people when you’re going to put stuff that funny in a post. I just spit my drink all over my monitor.
Hmmmmm
@ Rand
“Yes, I’ve been meaning to write a piece on what hot-house plants the Democrats tend to nominate, because the media are so largely Democrats, that set them up for losses once the real campaigning begins. Kerry was a perfect example of this.”
Yeah 2004 had an enormous list of such lousy candidates. I still cannot get over how the Democratic party just could not bring itself to reduce the 9 Presidential candidates, i.e. the Nazgul, to the more appropriate 2 or 3. That Al Sharpton was one of them was really ridiculous.
But personally my favorite was the Democratic candidate for the US Senate who was scheduled to participate in a live, televised debate before a studio audience. This was a Democratic activist now turned would-be US Senator. Except she got a severe case of stage fright.
While the Republican senator, the incumbent, was waiting at the podium and the audience was seated and ready to go, she locked herself into her dressing room and refused to come out. So they eliminated the live cameras. Still no go. So they eliminated the studio audience. Still no go. Finally they gave up and canceled the whole thing.
I can’t remember her name or the state it was in. But I definitely remember falling off my chair and laughing my butt off.
Yes, we can’t. Yes, we can’t.Yes, we can’t. Yes, we can’t.Yes, we can’t. Yes, we can’t.Yes, we can’t. Yes, we can’t.
May Obama-lama-ding-dong find an elk head in his bed, ala’ Corleone style.