Like most Democrats, I'm disappointed by the downward spiralling tone of this primary season. But it's not really accurate to blame all of Obama's problems on the Clinton campaign. He does seem genuinely reluctant to connect directly to key sectors of the electorate. It may be unfair to focus on his aversion to American-style comfort food, but it sure seems to indicate a distance from regular folks, and perhaps his own heritage on his mother's side of the family. Add to that his rather ungenerous comments about his grandmother, and his awkwardness with older women generally, and what you have is a lot of voters that he's just failing to reach.
It seems clear that Obama has a problem with Appalachia, as this site recently pointed out.
The Clintons know how to exploit Obama's weaknesses in reaching these voters. Bill's recent "race-card" comment was no accident. (And there's no way he cussed by accident on air). He can pretend that he's over the hill, but in fact he's a master of good-ol'-boy language. And he also knows there's no way for Obama to respond without keeping the words "race card" constantly in the media, which for better or worse annoys some white folks.
Or consider the flap over Obama's grandmother, still reverberating in the right-wing blogosphere. His passing reference to her in his celebrated (and groundbreaking) speech may prove to be his Achilles heel, unless he corrects his mistake. Folks resented Obama’s comments about his grandmother because they seemed disrespectful. Why? They reduced the woman to her hurtful comments. I don't doubt that they were hurtful indeed: I’m sure they made him feel like an outsider in his own family. But he rightly defended the good works of Rev. Wright in Chicago in spite of his biases. Let’s hear him do the same with his grandmother: be gracious and embrace what’s positive in his white ancestry, share a few of her stories. He has a common past with many poor, rural Americans. Let’s hear him talk directly to that past. Let's hear him appeal to tough, older women as peers.
Maybe the best way to respond is for Obama to connect more directly to his entire background, especially (for the sake of the upcoming contests) his own distant roots in Appalachia, like his great great great great grandaddy McCurry from Kentucky. He has a chance right now to connect before key mountain primaries, not to mention the general campaign.
But even more than the race card, Bill brilliantly plays the "age card". Why else would he pass himself off as older than he is, except to appeal to older voters? Bill is only 61, but going against baby boomer type and exaggerating his age gives Hillary an instant connection to a third of the electorate. Meanwhile Obama sometimes seems a bit dismissive of folks over 60. For a man who grew up with his grandparents, he seems surprisingly tone deaf when talking to older women in town halls (on the eve of the primary, he referred to one as a "young lady," like a salesman).
Correcting these blind spots could open up a real opportunity for Obama in Appalachia and rural America generally. Not only are Appalachian voters older on average, but more of them are women, and they have a long history of pride in hard times. We're on the brink of very hard times indeed, and we'll need the collective wisdom of our elders to get through them. Though I’m bit younger than Obama, my granny talked about the Great Depression constantly—it was a defining period of her life. I vividly remember her winding up stray bits of string ("just in case") and folding up old tin foil ("for a rainy day").
I bet Obama can pass on a lot of wisdom from his grandmother (and grandfather) about hard times in the Great Depression. It seems like an obvious way to make a connection to communities on the brink of economic failure.