Who can blame Hillary Oakley and St. John of Arizona for pulling every trick in the playbook to divert attention from their own campaign nightmares? The problem is that their whole argument is completely devoid of merit, let alone sincerity. (Obama is the elitist in the race? Please! Tell it to somebody who lives in Bangladesh or Iceland!)
Alright, let’s start with the whole quote:
I think it's fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre...I think they're misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work -- don't wanna vote for the black guy.' That's...there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it's sort of a race thing. But that’s not what it is.
Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).
But -- so the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What's the concrete thing?' What they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what we're proposing -- close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every American. So we'll go down a series of talking points.
But the truth is... that our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. 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. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. 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.
Now, it seems to me that the following facts are undeniably true:
1. Small towns in the Industrial Midwest have been devastated by globalization and other economic factors over the past 25 years.
2. The people who live in those small, devastated communities are suffering, and have been suffering through successive Republican and Democratic Administrations (including the Clinton Administration) since the 1980’s.
3. Many of these suffering millions do not believe that government will do anything to relieve their suffering.
4. Further, these millions of hard working Americans view most politicians with a jaded eye, because they have been promised the moon and what has been delivered is...well, what they have, which is a pitiful economy, crumbling infrastructure, inadequate schools, unaffordable college tuition, exorbitant health care costs and $4 a gallon gasoline.
So is Barack Obama suggesting that people go to church or go hunting to alleviate their suffering? No. Not even close. He is talking about the way they vote. ONLY THAT! NOTHING MORE! And it’s true, isn’t it? Even "Sneaky Pete" Scarborough had to admit yesterday that Republicans have succeeded for decades in getting working class, religious whites to vote against their own economic interests in order to vote for candidates who agree with them on "God, Guns and Gays."
Barack Obama is not talking down to anybody. He is simply seeking to address the great Democratic electoral quandary of our time: How can we convince rural and small town whites across the Industrial heartland (and the South, too, I think) to embrace the kind of politics which has the potential to change their lives for the better, instead of the kind of politics which, while making them feel warm and fuzzy on social issues, is diametrically opposed to their economic wellbeing? Barack Obama is saying that the challenge ahead of us in this campaign is to make the case that the things we want to do and the political positions we advocate, will be transformative; and that our ideas, when implemented, will have an enormous positive impact on their individual lives and the lives of their children for generations to come.
Barack Obama is certainly not saying that faith is a bad thing. How could he? He, himself, is a man of faith. He is not making a new judgment or taking a new position on gun control, either. Why would he? In fact he is not talking here about policy considerations at all. He is talking about what Democrats have to do to win a Presidential election in November, 2008. He is saying that we have to do a much better job of convincing these"Reagan Democrats" to come home, because this time, we have a message they can really believe in!
Amen and amen.