You & Frank Rich do good work, thoughtful, amusing post.

Smart persons Candidate? Obama? You have to be kidding....

Obama has beat all odds, from being black, being a Christian with a Muslim name, to having to bridge the culture divide expressed by the rhetoric of his minister.

The fact that Obama has managed stay ahead of Hillary nationally in most of the polls, and remains equal in hypothetical match-ups against McCain, and retains much higher polling figures for trust than does Hillary--all in spite of the relentless attacks from both Hillary and McCain and before the Democratic party unites and begins to expose the real McCain, from the Keating 5 to the war in Iraq--all this says to me that Obama has been able to communicate extraordinary well to most Americans.

While many highly educated people cannot communicate with people from different classes and races, the truly gifted communicators can.

Perhaps if the rest of us used small words....

you know, Obama really is a condescending sort of guy...really-you'll see.

I think Obama is truly a remarkable intellect. And the first intellectual candidate in a while with a real shot. And it would be amazing to have an intellectual, grassroots, progressive thinker like Obama become president. This is a man who actually pauses to think before he answers a question. I haven't seen many politicians do that.

What's funny is that some people assume he must be all style and no substance, because his oratory is so good. But this guy has both.

As far as getting past the anti-intellectual tone in America, it's a hurdle.

I hope he can use his communication skills to overcome this. And I also hope Americans realize that we are in dire straights, and having a smart president is not a bad thing at all. We tried the bumbling idiot for eight years and see the results all too clearly.

A few things might help -- his slightly midwest accent, the sports fan thing, the bumbling husband/father routine. I think things that humanize a candidate are helpful for voters to relate. (Something Hillary has been trying unsuccessfully for 16 + years)

Aren't possessive apostrophe's kind of twee, though?

I'm not saying that Obama isn't way smarter than the average American. He most definitely is. But so is Hillary. It's probably enough to say that they're both smart and to leave it at that since a "who's smarter?" debate will get us nowhere.

But how has Obama's campaign been intellectual? The Wright speech did strike me as deep and thoughtful so I'll take that as an example. Other than that I've found his campaign to be far more emotional than intellectual. This is a charismatic guy, he's no Adlai Stephenson.

Please don't mistake me, I'm not saying the guy's not really smart. But he is not campaigning as an egg head.

Well, some people raise an interesting question. I framed the issue as one of the danger of being perceived as the candidate favored by "thinking" people... let's take that as shorthand for pointy headed intellectuals (possibly latte drinking, volvo driving, college educated blah blah blah.) People like me (except for the Volvo.)

That is a different issue from how smart Obama actually is. I think Obama and Clinton are obviously very intelligent. It's surely not worth debating whether one is brighter than the other. I think McCain is smart enough... probably of average intelligence... smarter than Bush... not on Barack or Hillary's level. McCain may suffer from early senile dementia however.

However as I puzzle out Clinton's demographic successes and poll results in PA, I wonder whether Obama's lack of success in some quarters is more because of the fancy words and thoughtful paragraphs... or because of racial prejudice... if you'll forgive the phrase, too "upscale" or too "downscale" (in terms of American racial discrimination patterns)? Or do the eloquent words actually battle against the racial prejudice, by playing against stereotypes that some sectors may hold? How does his evident intelligence play, and does it play to his advantage or disadvantage?

The different question of who the "thinking person" SHOULD vote for might be disconnected from whether the candidate is himself / herself a "thinking person". Those of us who consider ourselves thinkers are naturally drawn to thinkers... but we can all imagine voting for the less thoughtful and less intellectual candidate because we prefer their policy positions. But in Obama's case he seems to me by far the most thoughtful of the candidates, and the most morally centered and I find myself committed to voting for him, even though on a few technical policy questions I think Hillary has better answers (ie. health care.) Because I'm not checking boxes on a policy checklist, but looking for transformational leadership, I think that his intelligence and thoughtfulness have the potential to create that change. I'm voting for Obama because he seems so much more thoughtful than Hillary, even though here and there I agree with her policy perspectives.

Finally, in the house of mirrors how do the preferences of self defined "intellectuals" reverberate to the detriment of a candidate if the public perceives the candidate as belonging to the Volvo drinking latte driving classes? To even ask that question is to have a vastly unjustified sense of self importance. :-)

Thanks to all for their comments here on my blog post.

Mike2,

Having been born and raised in the "T" of Pennsylvania, I would say that the currents of racism and sexism run deep. However if I had to guess, the racism would favor Clinton.

Anti-Intellectualism is rampant and even many progressives tend to be quite socially conservative, if that makes any sense.

In any case I doubt very much that how the candidates express their policy position, or the policies themselves will actually be much of a contributing factor in PA.

Bear in mind this comes from knowing the culture and not from anything I could cite.

Anecdotally, My very conservative Republican mother has interest in Obama.

It will be interesting for me to see the demographics breakdowns, that way I should know how the state will break in the fall.

As to a "thoughtful" candidate in Obama, I actually think that it is more his skill as an organizer more than as an academic that is drawing people in.

Was his integrity showing when he campaigned for Joe Lieberman? How about when he supporte Daley for mayor in Chicago? How's that integrity thing work?

A very realistic assessment of the danger of "perceived" intellect. I say perceived only because it is not the intellect nor the intelligence that puts people at odds with Obama. It is their individual perceptions of what intellect or the lack of it has done in their lives, that drives those with PhD's (Player Hater Degrees) to hold him and/or his candidacy in contempt