The anti-Obama tag team

Reuters accurately sums up the state of the presidential race in its lede, which explicitly groups Hillary Clinton and John McCain together as the "rivals" of Barack Obama who both attacked him today:

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama came under fire on Friday for saying small-town Pennsylvania residents were "bitter" and "cling to guns or religion," in comments his rivals said showed an elitist view of the middle class.

Obama's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain both pounced on the comments Obama made last weekend at a fundraiser in San Francisco.

Pretty unbelievable.

PS Here's the quote:

"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," Obama, an Illinois senator, said.

"And it's not surprising then 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," he said.

Assuming (reasonably) that Obama meant "they" to apply to some people in those towns rather than everyone, this is a classic Kinsley gaffe -- what Obama said is true but extremely impolitic to say, especially given his weaknesses with downscale white voters.

Update 4/12 9:09 AM: On reflection, Rob is right that the comment is condescending and elitist.

He cites Mickey Kaus's take, which I find persuasive. Kaus argues that Obama's race speech and this statement attribute various conservative attitudes on social issues (opposition to affirmative action and illegal immigration, support for gun rights, a devotion to evangelical religion) as the result of economic disclocation. While Obama's rhetoric may be accurate for some people, it implicitly denies the possibility that people sincerely oppose affirmative action, believe in the right to own guns, etc. for legitimate non-ideological reasons.

Here's the Kaus post:

The always-suspect Michael Lind nevertheless sends around a useful commentary on Obama's gruesomely off-key condscension toward downscale Rustbelt voters:

According to Obama, working class (white) people "cling to guns" because they are bitter at losing their manufacturing jobs.

Excuse me? Hunting is part of working-class American culture. Does Obama really think that working-class whites in Pennsylvania were gun control liberals until their industries were downsized, whereas they all rushed to join the NRA ...

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I used to think working class voters had conservative values because they were bitter about their economic circumstances--welfare and immigrants were "scapegoats," part of the false consciousness that would disappear when everyone was guaranteed a good job at good wages. Then I left college. ...

P.S.: Because Obama's comments are clearly a Category II Kinsley Gaffe--in which the candidate accidentally says what he really thinks--it will be hard for Obama to explain away. [He could say he was tired and it was late at night?--ed But he was similarly condescending in his big, heartfelt, well-prepared "race speech" when he explained white anger over welfare and affirmative action as a displacement of the bitterness that comes when whites

are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition ...

Obama's new restatement confirms the Marxist Deskwork interpretation of the race speech, removing any honest doubt as to his actual attitude.

Rather than trying to spin his way out, wouldn't it be better for Obama to forthrightly admit his identity? Let's have a national dialogue about egghead condescension!]

P.P.S.: Note that guns are not the only thing Obama says "white working class" people "cling" to for economic reasons:

[I]t's not surprising then 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. [E.A.]

Hmm. Isn't Obama the one who has been clinging to religion lately? Does he cling to his religion for authentic reasons while those poor Pennsylvania slobs cling to it as a way to "explain their frustrations"? ... They worship an awesome God in the blue states because they're bitter about stagnant wages! I think that's what he said in his 2004 convention address ...

Here's Kaus's original post on Obama's race speech:

Marc Ambinder gives Obama credit for saying "white resentments ... are grounded in legitimate concerns." The problem is he said that only after the populist passage cited above. The clear implication was not that resentment about welfare and affirmative action was "legitimate," but that these resentments were actually misguided symptoms of the legitimate anxiety, which would be anxiety over "stagnant wages," etc. caused by "corporate ... greed" etc.. ... If you think concern over welfare and affirmative action has an independent, legitimate basis apart from anxieties about the "middle class squeeze," it's highly condescending for Obama to tell whites (and similarly disposed blacks, for that matter) that, in effect, that they suffer from false consciousness--'I know you're really concerned about economics and declining wages and in your anxiety you let yourself be distracted into blaming welfare and affirmative action.' But that's what he says, as I read it and heard it...

And here's the relevant passage from Obama's race speech:

[A] similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

Comments

[Rob]

Why don't you assume that Obama meant just exactly what he said? Mickey Kaus describes Obama's statement as a Category II Kinsley Gaffe, which he defines as "when a politican says what he or she actually thinks (whether or not it's the truth)."

Obama's statement is not only impolitic, it's condescending and arrogant and contemptuous. And in a single sentence, it sums up the intellectual and academic Democratic view of the unwashed masses they regard as their natural constituency. Hillary and McCain were right to pounce on it, and it will be highly entertaining to watch Obama try to dance away from his statement in the coming days.

[David]

Obama hit a lot of hot buttons in a single crisp sentence. One is the implicit presumption that those who oppose illegal immigration are anti-immigrant.

Another is the chutzpah of a Democrat accusing people of being anti-trade. Nancy Pelosi and the House Dems just scuttled the trade agreement with Colombia. AFAIK Obama didn't criticize their action.

[Rob]

Thanks to Brendan for his update. Let me build on Kaus's comment about Obama's race speech by noting another problem with Obama's San Francisco statement.

Obama has premised his campaign on a new kind of politics, presumably one that builds bridges across divisions. Yet neither Obama's voting record nor his statements suggest any willingness to compromise or serious respect for differing views. Instead, he contorts others' differing views to become part of his own chosen narrative and as confirmation of his policy prescriptions.

It's the political equivalent of a parent dismissing a child's objection to something by telling the kid he's just being cranky. Senator Obama will make a far better President if he accepts the possibility that when voters disagree with his positions on immigration or affirmative action or gun control or the tastiness of Brussels sprouts, they aren't just being cranky.

[eska]

people see condescension where they want to see it. i'd posit that deeming the pennsylvania populous to which which obama was referring as being condescended to as condescending. i think the key problem with this and the wright affair is that people build these assumptions based more on sound bites than the whole cloth of what was said. this is far more destructive to understanding than any liberal elitism. i'll close with my two cents: this sounds condescending in a certain context, but the entire statement seemed to speak more to people's bitterness at political bait-and-switch, deciding to stop trying to help their overall situation and instead become issue voters on things they know politicians will listen on.

[Dave]

Obama's initial remarks are confusing and poorly phrased (which is, consequently, why I think this will be a tough tool to wield against him -- there's no good and easy-to-understand quote in there to hit him with). That said, the larger context he gave last night at an event in Indiana kind of changed the way I initially read what he was saying:

Obama's">http://talkingpointsmemo.com/">Obama's Response

He's basically making a Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas-eqsque argument, though one in which he doesn't blame those working class people for voting against their economic interests, but rather rationalizes it as being a reasonable decision after three decades of Washington inaction to their economic concerns.

It's not that he's saying these cultural beliefs arise directly from economic stagnation, but more so that people vote along those cultural lines disproportionately, and politicians draw upon these divisions cynically, such that they come to dominate political discourse over other, more pressing economic matters.

Kaus is wrong; Obama doesn't fault people for being opposed to busing or Affirmative Action, and he doesn't argue they only hold those beliefs because of their economic situation; the argument is that Washington inaction on economic collapse, and the way in which politicians have played off those (existing, real and justifiable) resentments, have caused those social concerns to take up disproportionate space in political discourse (have "distracted attention"), when the real culprit is something else entirely (bad corporate culture, questionable accounting practices, etc. etc.)

Now we can argue back and forth about the merits of that argument (I think it has a lot of flaws, and a bit of revisionist history of the past 30 years), but just because they are intellectualized and complex doesn't mean they're condescending; the "consciousness" he's describing isn't a "false consciousness", it is very real and entirely justifiable, though one that, because of cynical politicians and Washington inaction, ultimately distracts from more pressing concerns.

[Speener]

I do find it particularly amusing that McCain can comment given some of the statements he's made regarding the housing crisis.

Honestly I'm tired of the picking apart of these statements based on some belief that the politicians should first make people feel good, truth be damned- read HRC's comments in rebuttal - what do they mean asides from sounding good as a sound-bite?

I agree that middle america is bitter - but so is urban america and anyone who isn't in the top 20% of wage earners. And I wish Washington would be held responsible about it - but we generally let them off the hook.

[Jay McDonough]

from swimming freestyle:

"This video is exactly how Obama should have raised the issue: In the environment these voters live and with an appropriate anger. Rural working class voters have gotten the shaft. They have every right to be frustrated and even bitter about what's happened to them.

Obama now finds himself having to address the issue defensively, Unfortunately, the issue will now likely be obscured by the hysterical anti-Obama rants by the Clintons and McCains. Obama gave them that gift when he spoke in San Francisco last weekend."

http://swimmingfreestyle.typepad.com

[Jinchi]

Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mickey Kaus, the political media (and now Rob) are certainly quick to take offense. What I haven't seen is any evidence that the voters in Pennsylvania, or the people at the speech were up in arms over his words. Like Joe Klein - who worries that the people in the heartland will be upset if Obama doesn't wear a flag pin - it's this contrived concern for the feelings of the people in the heartland that is insulting.

Obama's comment is not condescending or elitist and can hardly be called a gaffe. He has been saying similar things to people across the country for months now.
Kaus's falls apart, because Obama didn't accidentally says what he really thinks - he said it purposefully. His rural supporters are intelligent enough to follow his meaning. People do become bitter when their jobs go overseas and when the government bails out the banks while those banks foreclose on their homes.

You can't complain that candidates are always speaking in vapid, treacly, platitudes, when you've got a hair trigger reaction to anything they say on the stump. That's the difference between Hillary and Barack - he is trusted and she is not because he does speak honestly about controversial subjects while she sticks to the politically acceptable.

[Peter H]

Mickey Kaus (and Rob) are full of it. Obama's not saying that people can't have legitimate oppositon to immigration, gun control, affirmative action, etc. He's saying that these issues have additional salience because of economic anxiety.