Election 2008

[Beltmann]

Hey, I don

[Beltmann]

Okay, it's not brilliant, but I thought it was a fun read: Elitist My Ass

 

It has been awhile since I've been back to my hometown near Detroit' date=' Michigan. I took the kids there in early 2007; the cold and unemployment were a stark reminder of why I left.

 

The abandoned buildings. For Sale signs. The way the road goes from smooth to bumpy when you cross the state line. Boarded up windows, failed 'revitalization' efforts. Friends laid off. Friends looking for work. Friends moving to get work. Family leaving, family staying, family commuting to other states for part-time jobs and part-time pay.

 

Make no mistake, I LOVE my hometown. I LOVE the Midwest. I think anyone and everyone should live and work and grow in these cities and towns-but understand when I tell you that Senator Barack Obama is DEAD ON when he talks about the bitterness of residents.

 

Are you hearing me?

 

This former Midwest girl is telling you Obama is not being 'elite' or 'out of touch' -he could NOT be MORE in touch. He's LISTENING and understanding that many of us who moved away and many of us that stayed are angry, frustrated, disappointed, disillusioned, and UNEMPLOYED.

 

In what world do Obama's remarks constitute 'looking down on'? I'm sorry, Senator Clinton-but are you HIGH? I am watching you right now, speaking in Indiana on CNN, and you are 'somewhat taken aback' by what Senator Obama said. Are you unaware that when life is as bad as it can possibly be, people turn to religion? Are you unaware that frustrated individuals tend to take up arms when they feel their very well being threatened by their surroundings?

 

Senator Clinton, let me be as clear as I possibly can here:

 

Barack Obama is giving voice to millions of us by speaking the TRUTH. He's simply vocalizing exactly what I hear from my Uncle, from my High School friend, from my former teacher, from my now re-located parents. He is speaking about what he's heard, what he's been told, what he has seen.

 

Senator Obama's remarks reminds me yet again that he is one of us. He GETS IT. He knows that I LEFT Detroit. I AM BITTER. I AM PISSED OFF. THERE ARE NO JOBS IN MY HOMETOWN. I couldn't move my family back there if I WANTED TO.

 

When I do take trips back home it is depressing. My husband NEVER wants to visit because he can't stand how dejected everyone is and how run down the whole place seems. Are there some amazing neighborhoods and jobs-of course. Is it horrible everywhere-of course not. Is it worse there than in many other places in the US-damn right.

 

Do you think I like living 3-thousand miles away from my family and friends? Do you think it's fun for me to watch everyone I know get laid off, go into bankruptcy, lose their house, work two low paying jobs, move into their parents home? Do you think I am NOT bitter about any of this?

 

Spin it. Go ahead. Talk about how those remarks make him seem elite and condescending. It is so absurd that it only confirms for me that you and Senator McCain are COMPLETELY OUT OF TOUCH with what REAL Americans think and do and want.

 

I would suggest, however, that you take your rhetoric elsewhere. Because the more you yap about Obama being 'elite' -while he's talking about how we really feel and you're releasing 109 Million dollar tax returns- the more stupid you look.[/quote']

[jc4prez]

I was just being facetious - I'm in total agreement with you.

 

Unfortunately, too many democrats and progressives no longer consider him relevant, and that, I think, is unfortunate.

 

I

[tugmoose]

Bottom line is that he handed Hillary a bullshit football that she can run with for the next couple of weeks.

[Beltmann]

Bottom line is that he handed Hillary a bullshit football that she can run with for the next couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, that's true. She's skilled at twisting things into BS. Here's what she said yesterday:

 

"I disagree with Sen. Obama's assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about trade and immigration simply out of frustration.... You know, some people now continue to teach their children and their grandchildren. It's part of culture. It's part of a way of life. People enjoy hunting and shooting because it's an important part of who they are. Not because they are bitter."

 

Thing is, Obama did not imply that people turn to religion or gun, trade, and immigration issues strictly out of bitterness or frustration; in fact, he said that religion and hunting are trusted, important parts of many people's lives. Clinton's willful distortion is pandering of the first order. Again I'm left asking, Does Hillary Clinton think we're all stupid?

[Edie]

I have a new job req out for a product marketing manager to report to me. I am in automotive (and in Chicago). Guess where I am looking? You guessed it -- Detroit.

[Panther]

Again I'm left asking, Does Hillary Clinton think we're all stupid?

 

Yes, Hillary Clinton thinks we are all stupid. (watch out for sniper fire) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rysGfGPjJ9A

 

Hillary Clinton is the real elitist and their is no disputing that.

More importantly significant from this episode though is Obamas reluctunce to call her on this. My point if Hilary Clinton called Ralph Nader an elitist he would have ammunition for days pointing out her bullshit spin, her globalist ties, her ugly ambitions and her well LIES. Instead Obama plays into the political rhetoric safely. The media has lead us to believe that the democratic cannadidates have been destroying eachother but reality is they havent. This has lead me to belive they are one in the same. I could be wrong and Obama might be doing what he has to do not rocking the boat, talking about "special intrest" without actualy talking about special intrests. I suppose time will tell.

 

here is a fun game we can play, everyone name the non elitist american presidents that they can think of.

 

I loose with zero, your turn.

[Beltmann]

Fox News on You Tube: PA Voter, a McCain Supporter, Says Obama Was Right On

 

I know it's just one voice, but it makes me wonder why pundits--both professional and armchair--haven't considered the possibility that Obama's comments might actually appeal to many small town voters?

[Beltmann]

Andrew Sullivan found a clip of Obama on Charlie Rose in 2004, basically expressing similar-sounding thoughts. Here's a portion:

 

"They're not optimistic... What they do know is, is they can go out with their friends and hunt, and feel a sense of camaraderie and there's a connection between hunting and them going out with their father to hunt, just as there's a connection maybe for their wives to go into church, and go in with their grandmother to church. And if we don't have plausible answers on the economic front, and we appear to be condescending towards those traditions that are giving their lives some stability, then they're going to opt for at least that party that seems to be speaking to the things that are giving, that still provide them something solid to stand on."

 

Interesting that the 2004 statement (above) clearly rejects an elitist stance. His "explanations" this weekend seem less like damage control when they are consistent with empathetic statements from four years ago. Instead, they seem genuine.

[bjorn_skurj]

Andrew Sullivan found a clip of Obama on Charlie Rose in 2004, basically expressing similar-sounding thoughts. Here's a portion:

 

"They're not optimistic... What they do know is, is they can go out with their friends and hunt, and feel a sense of camaraderie and there's a connection between hunting and them going out with their father to hunt, just as there's a connection maybe for their wives to go into church, and go in with their grandmother to church. And if we don't have plausible answers on the economic front, and we appear to be condescending towards those traditions that are giving their lives some stability, then they're going to opt for at least that party that seems to be speaking to the things that are giving, that still provide them something solid to stand on."

 

Interesting that the 2004 statement (above) clearly rejects an elitist stance. His "explanations" this weekend seem less like damage control when they are consistent with empathetic statements from four years ago. Instead, they seem genuine.

He should have taken his own advice there.

Look, nobody likes to think they're the subject of somebody else's anthropological theorizing. What I took away from Obama's SF comments was that he feels that the embracing of religion and support of the Second Amendment by people who used to work in factories is not a rational decision, but an irrational emotional reaction. As I live close to the East's answer to Berkeley, a charming little town called Woodstock, I am exposed to this line of thinking quite a bit and I have come to dislike it almost as much as I dislike racism and xenophobia. What Obama expressed sounds similar to this, from "What White People Like - #62: Knowing What's Best for Poor People."

 

It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things.

 

Obama has it hard enough already - anybody who thinks he's a shoo-in is delusional, IMO. He does not need to say crap like this.

[Beltmann]

What I took away from Obama's SF comments was that he feels that the embracing of religion and support of the Second Amendment by people who used to work in factories is not a rational decision, but an irrational emotional reaction.

I understand that's what you, and others, have taken from his SF statement, but that's not what I took from them. When I originally read them, my first reaction was, "What's the big deal here? He's showing concern about people on hard times. Hell, he's describing my own parents." His later clarifications reinforced my interpretation, and his 2004 statements now fortify it. The consistent pattern, I think, throughout Obama's books and his campaign, is a lack of condescension, which makes it even more difficult for me to project a kind of elitism onto a few slightly misphrased sentences in SF. To paraphrase your last post, isn't it possible that this so-called scandal is the result of Obama being the subject of somebody else's glib psychological theorizing?

 

Having read Obama's books and listened to his speeches about faith, it also strikes me as absurd to accuse Obama of dismissing religion as an "irrational emotional reaction." Here is a man who has been eloquent and thorough about what his faith means to him--if he's calling religious folk foolish, then he's targeting himself as well.

 

I am exposed to this line of thinking quite a bit and I have come to dislike it almost as much as I dislike racism and xenophobia.

I'm with ya there... and if I felt that Obama's comments truly belonged to that line of thinking, I wouldn't defend him. But I'm unconvinced Obama sees the PA voters in question as a strange, backward other; he might not be one of them, exactly, but I think what he recognizes is that there isn't much space between despairing factory workers in Pennsylvania and impoverished black people in a Chicago ghetto--his comments may have been specific to Pennsylvania, but they could just as easily be applied to places he knows and understands first-hand. Why should people in PA go to church for reasons so very different from those at Trinity in Chicago?

[tugmoose]

And now, a word from the bitter voters (apparently on break from shooting immigrants in the name of Baby Jesus).

[bobbob1313]

Call me crazy, but every time Obama repudiates the repulsive "guns 'n' god" American lifestyle, I love him an inch or two more.

 

My pet theory is that he's a closet atheist; if you examine his general speech re: religion, you'll notice that it's very guarded. Whenever he discusses his personal relationship to the church, he's careful never to state that he believes in Jesus in a literal sense, simply that he believes in his, and the church's, message. He was raised in an areligious household, and it's very, very difficult to fall into such a genial, mostly inoffensive cult as Christianity if you aren't indoctrinated from birth.

 

Again, make this man president, already!

 

 

Sidenote: Could you be more pretentious? I mean, I kind of agree with you in this instance, but get over yourself.

[tugmoose]

I'm waiting for this guy to tell me how things are in small towns.

 

[bobbob1313]

He'll probably tell you that people are bumping uglies outside of drive thru ice cream stands.

[Good Old Neon]

 

Sidenote: Could you be more pretentious? I mean, I kind of agree with you in this instance, but get over yourself.

 

That's subjective.

[mountain bed]

I'm waiting for this guy to tell me how things are in small towns.

 

I know what he'd tell you - "This is our country".

[bobbob1313]

That's subjective.

 

Yeah, I see what you did there. It's dumb.

[bjorn_skurj]

Yeah, I see what you did there. It's dumb.

He got ya - you can't claim universal nonapplication of standards for rock bands and then deny them for message board posts. Deontology, my man.

[bobbob1313]

Well, no, I absolutely agree with him, it is subjective. My opinion is that the Maker was being completely pretentious. It's not a fact.

 

It's sort of pointless to point out in this instance, since we haven't discussed that in a few weeks.

[EL the Famous]

It's not a fact.

 

i beg to differ.

[bjorn_skurj]

Well, no, I absolutely agree with him, it is subjective. My opinion is that the Maker was being completely pretentious. It's not a fact.

 

It's sort of pointless to point out in this instance, since we haven't discussed that in a few weeks.

Journalists never forget. The brains of journalists are just filled with facts and assertions, biding their time.

[Sir Stewart]

Journalists never forget. The brains of journalists are just filled with facts and assertions, biding their time.

You'd been waiting years for the right moment to say that.

[bjorn_skurj]

Bill Kristol makes my point from before a bit better than I did. (Shit. Am I becoming a Conservative?)

 

The Mask Slips

By WILLIAM KRISTOL

 

I haven

[Good Old Neon]

As if Mr. Kristol spends his weekends at his local VFW, tipping back beers with the regular folk - swapping hunting stories.

 

The only time folks like Bill and/or the vast majority of political candidates get down with the people is when they condescendingly visit local diners in search of votes.

 

But I