Obama scoring points with rural voters...

[shinerbock]

"You go into 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. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

I suspect many will take this as condescending. Perhaps it will get interesting

[EE-BO]

Well, the Harvard graduate liberal elitist has finally come out. So much for change and hope.

This is more than condescending. This is a pretty direct statement accusing people of turning to racism and violence. The religion reference is amusing as well. I expect there are not many churches preaching as much hate, racism and ignorance as Barack's.

Do you think this will matter too much though? Even if Hillary wins, her winning the nomination just seems impossible at this point.

Did you see this on Fox News? That is where I caught it. I did not notice it on CNN, my local channels or MSNBC. I am not sure if it is being given the same level of coverage as snafus from the other leading candidates have been...

[macallan25]

But bro....it's all about chaaaange man. It's all about hoooope........

[jen0830]

You are right, the news media will do anything to get him elected. I work in the entertainment industry in LA, which is the Land of the Pod People.

They are always chanting, “OBAMA GOOD” “OTHERS BAD”.

The news will cover and air the opening of a local car dealership before putting anything on the air that is truthful, yet may be negative, about “HIS HOLY HIGHNESS”. His speeches continue to reveal his (lack of) character:

Condescending. Yes,
Obnoxious. Absolutely
Hypocrite. Ah, that’s an affirmative

Let's face it; he's a well-dressed phony, who’s bamboozled the fools who think he wants to help anybody but himself.

I can’t wait to hear from the “Yada Yada Obama” Cultists.
It’s so predictable.

“It was taken out of context”, “10 second sound bytes”, “Racism!” “What about the others and what they said?” “You only listen to Fox News” “It’s just not FAIR!”

P.S. He actually had the audacity to say, "We cling to God?" He wants us to cling to him as the supreme power for ch...ch....changes?
AUAUUUU, there's some karma! I will take "GOD" "SPIRIT" "UNIVERSAL LOVING", "HIGHER POWER" "UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS" (remember I live in LA), any day, over him as my god.

[DaemonSeid]

Wait....so what part did he say wasn't true?

The cut in aid given to small towns and farmers part or the antipathy part?


25 years huh:


Hmmmmm....

Let's see if I remember coorectly , Reagan made cuts waaaay back in 1985, one that his Argicultural secretary John Block supported saying that farmers made it this long without govt support, and they can continue.


Anyone remember a small concert called Farm Aid?

George H while not adding taxes raised the existing taxes

Bill Clinton while not as swift to take more money from farmers did hop on the NAFTA train and many jobs got outsourced.

George W. has been cutting agricultural spending since 2000 and in 2005 cut well over 3 billion dollars from farmers' pocket.


maybe it's just me, but I think that if I was in those folks' shoes, I would be a bit salty also come election time....

The above is the short version....

Obama an Ivy league (Harvard) elitist??

And I guess the fact that George Bush Sr and Jr along with Bill Clinton having ties with Yale and Oxford means they went to 'less elitist' schools...


maybe that's what this is all about... Harvard vs Yale for the Big House FTW.

hehe.....and so it goes.

[skylark]

Heaven forbid we have a President who thinks we are all intelligent adults enough to comprehend a semi-controversial idea. Heaven forbid we have a President who actually cares about figuring out what the origins and causes of our problems (like hatred) are. Heaven forbid we have a President who thinks America can handle hearing the truth and isn't afraid to be the one to share it.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by skylark

Heaven forbid we have a President who thinks we are all intelligent adults enough to comprehend a semi-controversial idea. Heaven forbid we have a President who actually cares about figuring out what the origins and causes of our problems (like hatred) are. Heaven forbid we have a President who thinks America can handle hearing the truth and isn't afraid to be the one to share it.

An independantly thinking president who will challenge the American people to look at themselves in a moment of introspection????
A compassionate president?


uh oh!

[shinerbock]

You're right. Heaven forbid.

Heaven forbid we have a President intent on autonomy-stripping. God forbid we have a POTUS who looks to people holding on to their religion and says "well if we can fix these problems for these people, they can abandon that once and for all." One who looks at those who value the right to self-defense and says "If we can improve their living status, then we can go get those guns." One who looks at rural Americans and goes, "Why don't they vote in their self-interest, how could anyone possibly favor what is best for the country over what is best for them individually?"

Obama supporters are the same type who bitch and whine about the Bush administration destroying individual civil rights, and then turn around and proclaim with broad paternalism that we, the liberal ivory-tower elitists who are less likely to serve in the military, less likely to do blue collar work that constitutes the backbone of the country, are the ones who know what is best for you. They look at southerners as morons because they think family values are more important than increased entitlement programs that they could benefit from. If only they'll listen to us, we can get rid of relics of the past like religion, pride, patriotism, and family.

Heaven forbid, indeed.

[BigRedBeta]

Read the book What's the Matter with Kansas?. What Obama said is certainly true (I find the religion dropped in there to be very odd in its phrasing, though), and those are things that the Conservative Right have preyed upon for political gain.

A lot of what's being said in this thread is exactly what I was expecting - the rhetoric that liberals can't be for family values, can't be patriots, can't have religious convictions.

My undergraduate degree is in Sociology, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm guilty of immediately looking at how outside forces shape people's thinking, rather than focusing on "personal accountability" or making decisions in a vacuum like many psychologists make things out to be. I constantly look at the context in which a person makes a decision, how society has limited their options, or pushed other ideas to the forefront or so on. There's a subtlety in what Obama said, that when I read it, I found it to mean that it's NOT that people are "clinging" to these items/ideas and they're wrong to do so, but that they're "clinging" to them in their politics and politicians have used these ideas to win votes, when the economic policies that these politicians espouse are detrimental to these very same rural voters. It's that subtlety that is undoubtedly being lost by the talking heads, and has lead to Obama going into damage control mode.

In What's the Matter with Kansas?, the author does a pretty impressive job of showing how for the most part, Conservative politicians who run on abortion, gun control, religion in schools, and similar platforms have time and time again failed to make any significant headway on these issues, and yet still win voters by using them over and over. Kansas in particular has essentially become a 3 party state in which there is a ton of infighting between Conservative Republicans (typically poor rural voters worried about cultural items), Moderate Republicans (upper middle class voters from the Kansas City suburbs worried most about economic issues) and Democrats (urban voters in KC and Wichita taking normal Democratic positions). What Obama said, pretty much sums up what has happened in Kansas. Rural voters go against their economic interests because of social issues, vote Republican, which typically results in economic decisions that further harm these rural voters. The mods, they're generally happy enough to take in the social issues for the larger economic goals. It's most notable in Kansas though, that the conservatives have made the Mods uncomfortable about these social issues, because of what that has resulted in (Kansas striking evolution from state science standards and the like).

What this will ultimately end up meaning for Obama, I don't know. I appreciate how he avoids being a 'sound bite' politician, but sometimes it's hard to get your point across when you explain the shades of gray.

[UGAalum94]

Attributing peoples' beliefs to economic circumstances beyond their control is going to be insulting to the people who hold those beliefs though, and that's a big political problem with his comments.

It may seems strange to die hard Democrats, but some people would choose to hold onto religion, gun rights, immigration law even if their economic circumstances did improve. They don't believe what they believe because they are economically bitter; they believe it because they believe these ideas are valuable and true. (It's certainly possible that being more well off makes you be more tolerant as you are exposed to more, but there may be a point where tolerance becomes decadence culturally too.)

It may be true that the Republican party has been more able to exploit this group of voters, but it's also true that if these issues are important to you, the Democrats haven't offered you anything on these issues.

BigRedBeta, I don't doubt for a minute that Republicans are more effective at exploiting the type of voters Obama was talking about and it probably is something that needs to be discussed within the Democratic party, which may have been what Obama thought he was doing. However, that group of voters is going to be even less likely to embrace a politician who tips his hand the way Obama did, especially while he's in the middle of trying to become one major party's Presidential candidate. It basically floats the idea out there that the candidate, not only doesn't take the issues of gun rights, religion and controlling immigration seriously, but also regards the people who hold such beliefs as somehow being delusional. That's not helping bring them in to the party. Maybe we could right another book called The Only Thing More Wrong than Kansas is the Democratic Party's Response.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

Wait....so what part did he say wasn't true?

The cut in aid given to small towns and farmers part or the antipathy part?


25 years huh:


Hmmmmm....

Let's see if I remember coorectly , Reagan made cuts waaaay back in 1985, one that his Argicultural secretary John Block supported saying that farmers made it this long without govt support, and they can continue.


Anyone remember a small concert called Farm Aid?

George H while not raising taxes added taxes

Bill Clinton while not as swift to take more money from farmers did hop on the NAFTA train and many jobs got outsourced.

George W. has been cutting agricultural spending since 2000 and in 2005 cut well over 3 billion dollars from farmers' pocket.


maybe it's just me, but I think that if I was in those folks' shoes, I would be a bit salty also come election time....

The above is the short version....

Obama an Ivy league (Harvard) elitist??

And I guess the fact that George Bush Sr and Jr along with Bill Clinton having ties with Yale and Oxford means they went to 'less elitist' schools...


maybe that's what this is all about... Harvard vs Yale for the Big House FTW.

hehe.....and so it goes.

The part that "isn't true" is that he attributes people's feelings on issues to economic circumstances and being bitter, which might be what good hearted liberals want to think about poor people who don't share their values, but may not actually be the case. They may "cling" to their guns because they think the 2nd amendment is a big deal and they may not trust the government to know best. It might not have anything to do with factories closing down or cuts in Farm spending.

ETA: did you actually read the comment for yourself? I may be wrong, but I don't think anyone is fired up about the idea that economically these voters aren't in good shape, and yet your response seems to be about proving that the gov't hasn't been good to them. The problem is that the people that Obama is talking about are never going to see themselves as bitter about what the government failed to deliver economically. They probably don't see themselves are wanting a handout.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by skylark

Heaven forbid we have a President who thinks we are all intelligent adults enough to comprehend a semi-controversial idea. Heaven forbid we have a President who actually cares about figuring out what the origins and causes of our problems (like hatred) are. Heaven forbid we have a President who thinks America can handle hearing the truth and isn't afraid to be the one to share it.

But what if it isn't the truth or a very accurate description of what people believe and why they believe it? Then he's just revealed how out of touch and offensive he is to a segment of the electorate.

If Obama had want to have an open discussion with rural voters about the issues, he could have done that; instead we get reports of comments he made about these voters to a relatively disconnected group of affluent campaign contributers across the country who, in contrast with your take that he was opening the discussion, were likely to be in agreement with the "wisdom" he advanced.

[shinerbock]

Originally Posted by BigRedBeta

Read the book What's the Matter with Kansas?. What Obama said is certainly true (I find the religion dropped in there to be very odd in its phrasing, though), and those are things that the Conservative Right have preyed upon for political gain.

Blatant appeal to authority, but I do it too.

A lot of what's being said in this thread is exactly what I was expecting - the rhetoric that liberals can't be for family values, can't be patriots, can't have religious convictions.

nobody said this.

My undergraduate degree is in Sociology, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm guilty of immediately looking at how outside forces shape people's thinking, rather than focusing on "personal accountability" or making decisions in a vacuum like many psychologists make things out to be. I constantly look at the context in which a person makes a decision, how society has limited their options, or pushed other ideas to the forefront or so on. There's a subtlety in what Obama said, that when I read it, I found it to mean that it's NOT that people are "clinging" to these items/ideas and they're wrong to do so, but that they're "clinging" to them in their politics and politicians have used these ideas to win votes, when the economic policies that these politicians espouse are detrimental to these very same rural voters. It's that subtlety that is undoubtedly being lost by the talking heads, and has lead to Obama going into damage control mode.

Again, you're (like other liberals) assuming to tell these rural voters what is best for them. I find that the most insulting part of this entire discussion.

In What's the Matter with Kansas?, the author does a pretty impressive job of showing how for the most part, Conservative politicians who run on abortion, gun control, religion in schools, and similar platforms have time and time again failed to make any significant headway on these issues, and yet still win voters by using them over and over. Kansas in particular has essentially become a 3 party state in which there is a ton of infighting between Conservative Republicans (typically poor rural voters worried about cultural items), Moderate Republicans (upper middle class voters from the Kansas City suburbs worried most about economic issues) and Democrats (urban voters in KC and Wichita taking normal Democratic positions). What Obama said, pretty much sums up what has happened in Kansas. Rural voters go against their economic interests because of social issues, vote Republican, which typically results in economic decisions that further harm these rural voters. The mods, they're generally happy enough to take in the social issues for the larger economic goals. It's most notable in Kansas though, that the conservatives have made the Mods uncomfortable about these social issues, because of what that has resulted in (Kansas striking evolution from state science standards and the like).

The GOP uses issues that people are passionate about to rally support. So does the left. Most Republicans (in office) don't care about school prayer, but it is a nice sounding issue that rallies their base. Most Democrats (I believe) aren't passionate about gun control, but it draws upon a dichotomy that many in their base enjoy: that of sophisticated, peaceful individuals intent on resolving conflict amicably (liberals) and the redneck, uneducated, prone-to-violence ruffians who desperately need the government to save them (rural conservatives). While this book sounds interesting, I don't think the concept of political parties using controversial issues to their advantage is revolutionary.

What this will ultimately end up meaning for Obama, I don't know. I appreciate how he avoids being a 'sound bite' politician, but sometimes it's hard to get your point across when you explain the shades of gray.

.

[EE-BO]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

God forbid we have a POTUS who looks to people holding on to their religion and says "well if we can fix these problems for these people, they can abandon that once and for all."

This is exactly what is most wrong with Obama's comment. It is the extreme far left position that thinks government should be the ultimate authority in people's lives because big government is the best solution.

On the face of it, I found his remark insulting and condescending- but the greater matter here is that this, along with his recent interview on CNBC where he finally discussed his economic plan, is one more indication that Obama is very far left of where the nation is as a whole, and that his ideas are not all that new.

BigRedBeta- I certainly agree that industrial communities in the Northeast and elsewhere are in a very bad way, and I would imagine there are a lot of bitter people out there. It is not just about job loss either. With consolidation and many companies going out of business, pensions have been lost for many too.

But it is a big stretch to suggest that such bitterness drives people to religion, guns etc.

I think this is very bad news for the general election. Centrism is the order of the day. Bill Clinton was a true centrist and that is one reason he accomplished a lot of important things- including some things that the far left of his own party were not too thrilled about (welfare reform.)

Bush won on the promise he would also be a centrist- and we know how that came out. Early on in his Presidency, Bush actually spoke about the possibility of permitting same-sex unions- but that disappeared quick. He eventually caved in to the party line and a lot of the progressive social agenda he spoke about early on evaporated entirely.

And now, despite the rantings and ravings of the far right of the Republican Party- we have another true centrist as the nominee, John McCain.

I think Hillary is very smart and very flexible. I could see her working both sides to get things done.

I just don't see that with Obama- and I think that is why he has no chance of winning the White House. This comment we are talking about is just one more piece of evidence about the true practical philosophy of someone who has been talking up to now on very high level intangible matters.

[shinerbock]

I'm not offended by Obama's comments, for myself or on behalf of anyone else.

I do think it reinforces how I feel about him, however. I think he is a liberal elitist who thinks that the government knows better than the individual when it comes to spending money, protecting our families and raising our children.