I've just read a Financial Times review of Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant. In the vein of What's the matter with Kansas, Bageant returns to his boyhood home in Winchester Virginia.
that used to have a textile mill and a middle class who once proclaimed, “We may be poor but we ain’t coloureds.”...
Bageant finds it hard to love his roots even as he sympathises with those he once left behind. These Nascar-loving, $8-an-hour-earning, strip-bar-frequenting, Dollar-store-shoppers may be his, mostly Scots-Irish, stock. But they also voted overwhelmingly for Bush.
So maybe Obama's biggest problem with these people isn't his race.
These are people, says Bageant, who “cannot, and do not care to, find Iraq or France on a map – assuming they even own an atlas ... Here, nearly everyone over the age of 50 has serious health problems, credit ratings rarely top 500, and alcohol, Jesus, and overeating are the three preferred avenues of escape.”
Still, Winchester always has the nearby town of Romney to look down upon – an economic wasteland just across the state lines in West Virginia. In Romney, things have got so bad, says Bageant, that people brand women snobs “for being too good to have a boyfriend in jail”.
In Reagan's first debate against Walter Mondale in '84 Reagan seemed to have Alzheimer's and won a landslide. When George H.W. Bush picked Dan Quayle his poll numbers skyrocketed while we were ROFL. Bill Clinton showed his pasty white thighs while jogging to McDonalds and his poll numbers soared. No one here needs reminding about W.
We admire and select candidates with the gifts and self discipline to surpass our abilities. Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry seemed like they would be masterful behind the scenes. Did they lose because their public personality wasn't masterful or because they didn't give voters enough to look down on?
Obama seems as able as our last 3 losing Presidential nominees, plus his public persona is also masterful. So we see this and are won over, as were the heads of state he just met. But how many look at Obama and see nothing they can measure up to and it makes them angry? Stephen Colbert compared Obama to Lassie and McCain to "Mr Scruffles", a mangey little mutt. No matter what's wrong with you, Mr Scruffles has it worse and you know Lassie can do a lot better than you.
I also wonder if race prevents Obama from showing endearing weaknesses. A black man couldn't get elected with the failings of Bill Clinton or George W and probably not with McCain's quick temper. Michelle says Barack is snorey and stinky and he's promised to quit smoking, so he's not perfect but that doesn't seem nearly enough to make an $8 an hour Republican feel good about himself.
So maybe Obama has to be near perfect because of race but has to be more fallible to make people comfortable. My only idea is to follow Pappy Bush's example and pick a VP Winchester Virginia can look down on.
By the way, I'm Scots-Irish too.