Bitter?

I've refrained from writing about the presidential campaign for several weeks. There are many reasons why, but mostly it's because I'm tired of the negativity. I've been interested in politics for decades (you know you're old when you've been doing anything for decades), but the one thing I can't stand is when the candidates get negative. I start to tune it out.

But there are some things I can't - or refuse to - tune out. One of the reasons I've always been and always will be a Democrat (unless we come up with something better), is because it's the party of the people, the one to whom the average middle-class or working-class American matters.

Certainly, our elected Democrats are rarely middle-class and almost never working-class. But sometimes they were raised without monetary privilege, as were a fair number of Republicans. As I see it, one of the key points that differentiates a Democrat from a Republican (politician or regular person) is the ability to identify with and relate to the issues that affect people different from themselves.

However, last week Obama showed his lack of understanding when he said:

"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."

Not only as a small-town and Midwest native, but also as a Democrat and a rational person, I am appalled by this broad-stroke assessment. It is a huge over-simplification and ignorant assignment of a singular mindset to millions of people. In his last sentence above, he essentially concludes Rural Midwest=Bitter=Ignorant gun-toting, bible-thumping racists.

Obama has frequently been identified as an elitist, but until now I didn't necessarily buy it. If or when (and it increasingly looks to be the latter) he becomes the nominee, I will vote for him. But not without reservation, as I don't think he truly understands the majority of the electorate who will (and, indeed, already have) cast their ballots in his favor.

Or as stated more eloquently by Bill Kristol in today's New York Times: "He’s disdainful of small-town America — one might say, of bourgeois America. He’s usually good at disguising this. But in San Francisco the mask slipped. And it’s not so easy to get elected by a citizenry you patronize."

"And what are the grounds for his supercilious disdain? If he were a war hero, if he had a career of remarkable civic achievement or public service — then he could perhaps be excused an unattractive but in a sense understandable hauteur. But what has Barack Obama accomplished that entitles him to look down on his fellow Americans?"

Is he really the best candidate to lead the Democrats? We would be wise to consider what other masks might slip between now and November and what we'll find when the real Obama emerges.