I didn't feel that Obama's Bitter Blather comments in San Francisco were condescending, as many working class voters have said in person-on-the-street interviews. He did not, as practically all his opponents have said, say that people hunt and go to church because  they're hurting economically and see no hope. He only said that they "cling" to their life preferences when they're hurting. The point was, as he more extensively said in his interview with Charlie Rose in 2004, they find refuge from an uncaring political culture.

There's a huge difference. The former discredits their life preferences, as though those preferences were not satisfying and meaningful on their own merits. The latter discredits no one. But Obama is condescending in ways that haven't been pointed out.

In dealing with the attacks against him, one of his primary techniques is to name-call the attacks as "negative." Often, he slips into a joking kind of ridicule of his critics. He seems to think that he's only pointing out the obvious and rallying the troops to resist negative campaigning. But look a further under the hood of this technique.

Unfortunately, to the voter who is sincerely worried that Obama might be a closet radical or unfeeling toward working class people, this technique is condescending. Calling an attack or an attacker "negative" is like berating a jury member in a trial for at least initially agreeing with the prosecution. Instead of arguing his side of the case, Obama is not only putting down the prosecutor and the jury but appearing defensive in the bargain. Not good. 

Obama's negative label does make a reasonable point, but he makes it in a condescending way. There's a non-condescending method he needs to incorporate.

He can explain that guilt by association attacks are difficult for all of us, including him. Our entire country was deceived by Joe McCarthy, so it's no sin to be tricked by these attacks. After all, some accusations prove to be true, as in the case of President Clinton's affair and Senator Clinton's puffery about her visit to Bosnia; politicians do unfavorable things and lie about them. That's part of what makes it so difficult for the average, non-junkie voter to figure out what's true. That's an empathic view of the kind of voter I have in mind.

Another name for empathizing is "getting on the side of." Once on the side of this kind of voter, Obama can explain that he's been trying to understand the power of guilt by association attacks and that he realizes why they are so effective. It's that these attacks are, except in the case of extremists, expressed in somewhat polite ways. For instance, Hillary said, "I would've left that church." She didn't say, "He's a closet black radical." She didn't have to, because of guilt by association. But that extreme, hidden accusation, I think, works on people's minds even though they may never bring it out. Accordingly, Obama never addresses the more damning implied criticism. He never challenges people to find any bit of evidence other than his few associations that prove that he is a closet radical. It's as though a powerful subliminal message is flashed on our TV screens whenever a guilt by association attack is made. We don't fully realize that we're in the grip of it, and Obama's failure to bring it out and address it abandons us to the accusation's power.

This kind of empathetic thinking would solve the problem of condescension I've outlined. It would, ironically enough, make people feel that he is in touch with them much more than attendance at a tractor convention or a cheese steak diner.

What many people think the voters want is a pal, which is itself a condescending view that has run riot in America. We've devolved to a shuck and jive approach to selling oneself, truly believing, I think, that voters are stupid and insensitive. But I can tell you from years of working with parolees and working class and very poor people, that my education and erudition haves never gotten in the way of forming viable relationships with them. They call me, "Doc," as a paean to my unhidden sophistication. They respect my intelligence when they see how a clever insight can free them. What keeps us together is not my ability to chug a beer or get down in the mud at a tractor pull, but my consistent enough empathy and genuine encouragement of them. Obama has that to give aplenty, but he needs to deepen his commitment to his natural, mother-given feeling for people and rely on it rather than less.