I read an interesting article in Salon yesterday. The writer interviewed many small town voters in battleground states to find out why Obama is having problems there.
The conclusions from the interviews with the people he talked to was not what so many of us blow away as simply being racists.
It is much more complicated.
http://www.salon.com/...
Racism does not seem to be the big deal for voters that we simply chalk it up to for the problem Obama is having.
Despite the failures of Bush, 'the guy you want to have a beer with', it seems voters have latched onto this idea that our president should be just like our neighbor or our friends.
This is why so many embraced Palin without knowing anything about her. She seemed to be like the neighbor or co-worker you go shopping with and chat with while you are waiting to pick the kids up from the bus stop.
This country has embraced the idea of that our president should be one of us average smucks and the less educated, the less worldly, the less wonkish or less knowledge on world affairs, ect., the better.
The fantasy of the not so bright, blue collar guy who someone is elevated to the highest office through some weird circumstances and all this fun ensues, is playing out in voters minds.
Nevermind that C student George, the guy you want to have a beer with, destroyed the country because of ineptness, people are still looking for a guy even more average then George.
Common sense is out the window. The fact that an educated, capable, intelligent person is what is needed most in the job, it seems people would rather vote for a person with a GED and no experience over a qualified person, if the candidate seems to just like them.
Beyond Obama's race, what I found was a more complicated set of concerns -- whether accurately informed or not -- about his religious faith, values and cultural and educational background. That is, many of these white rural voters expressed a discomfort that may have more to do with unfamiliarity about the type of person Barack Obama is, rather than with direct concerns about his race.
Although I encountered a scattering of openly racist views, they were among a small minority. (These voters would probably never vote for a Democrat for president anyway.) Many voters dismissed the notion that hesitancy about Obama is due to his race.
One Union guy in Michigan said that it had nothing to do with Obama's race and that, heck, Bill Clinton was more black then Obama.
As one voter put it:
"He's just not someone I can personally relate to," explained Cathy Massingale, 33, of Cullowhee, N.C., a Democrat who first supported John Edwards this election, and then Hillary Clinton. "Obama just doesn't feel like someone who knows me." Massingale's husband is in the military, and she wants to see a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. But she said she remains undecided about Obama or McCain.
Some whites the writer talked to said that even if some whites felt uncomfortable about Obama's race they would get over it. But, whites in rural or small towns also saw Obama as too alien from the kind of black they were use to. They felt they knew the Sharpton, Jackson kind of black or the stereotype of the urban black. But, Obama was too different from these two types (yes, stereotypes) that whites in rural and small towns felt they knew.
Obama fits neither of these tropes, as a highly educated, upper-middle-class, self-made urban black man. (One with lighter skin and of mixed race, to boot.) He's not foreign because he's black, he's foreign because he's unknown -- especially as someone seeking a job held exclusively by white men for more than two centuries.
Needless to say, the smear emails only adds to this suspicion. Because Obama is so different from the stereotypical, but familiar african american that these whites 'knew', the emails are more potent and this is why they have taken hold so easily and people believe them more readily, despite evidence that disputes these emails.
For many whites, they simply do not like Obama, not because of his skin color but, because they see him as this over-educated, wonkish, 'elitist' type:
Gary Ball, a former coal miner and editor of the firebrand Mountain Citizen newspaper that is published in Inez, points to an authenticity gap for Obama. "People around here see Obama as being privileged," he said. Never mind McCain -- with his seven houses -- or recent blue blood candidates George W. Bush, John Kerry and Al Gore. "We know Obama's plenty book-smart ... but I liked Harry Truman, the last president to have a simple high school education."
The fantasy of the average guy with a GED or Diploma, the guy you want to have a beer with, is the biggest problem for Obama.
It seems we, as a country, seem to not be able to connect the dots that someone like Bush, Mr. C Student, is the reason for the problems and not the cure.
That is what we are fighting against. The biggest reason Palin is attracting white voters despite, or because of, her lack of qualifications and the 'Maverick' tag sticks to McCain, despite his dealing dirty and lying is their seeming to be like them: average.
Bill and Hillary, despite their education and million dollar bank account, come off as your good ol' boy types.
We may feel good blaming the media for this but, in reality, it is Hollywood, with it's elevating the dumb bumbler type to a position of power and he espouses the common man ideas that saves the day, that seems to have taken hold in people's minds.