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The War on Obama, and Why Blue Collar Types Vote Like Rush says, and Against Their Own Best Interests
Its amazing how many Obama haters on line sound exactly like any 5 minutes of the Rush or Hannity shows.
There is a reason those radio guys are a 24-7 Obama hate fest. They hope to destroy him now because they know how easy it will be to get Hillary next. All they have on Obama is Wright and Ayers, and they fear the guilt by association will wear thin by November. Hillary, on the other hand, they have 16 years worth of ammo for.
Clearly Hillary, grasping at straws to keep herself afloat, will accept the help of these wing nuts. But any Democrat parroting the same lines as Limbaugh would have to be drunk to believe he would ever do anything to help the Democrats win. The Repugs know Hillary starts with 50% negatives that are deeply ingrained. They fear that one day people will figure out that its kind of silly to believe a half white guy raised by a white family is a racist, or that he's a muslim, or that the name his Daddy picked 40 years ago is relevant to anything. Next, they might figure out the lobby types Hillary and McCain have been worshipping their entire careers are the real reason nothing good gets done in DC, and a president not beholden to them, one who gets his money from regular folks, might actually work for the people instead of the corporations. Thats why they must destroy Obama now.
These guys are pros at getting blue collar types to vote against their best interests, which is why their jobs got exported and their sons get sent to this illogical war. Their deepest fear is that Obama, with his easy smile and non-threatening manner will convince poor whites that they have more in common with democrats than with 100 million dollar Cindy who makes 5 million a year by just existing.
Barack's supporters get called Obamabots, but I have to see them support the party of big oil, fend for yourself health insurance and send our jobs to China to make the stuff at Wal-Mart cheaper. Seriously. Think gas would be $4 a gallon if Bush hadn't ripped middle east peace to shreds because his neocon buddies thought it would be easy and fun to start Democracy? After seeing how wrong the Republicans have been, and what a mess they have made of the world, why do so many still obey Limbaugh's marching orders? Its got to be more than the fact that Obama's ex-preacher said some things as wacky as what Hagee preaches.
Guess what. Rush and Hannity can afford $20 gas. And if they can again con blue collars into voting against their best interests because they think Obama's ex preacher hates America, $20 gas may be the least of our problems.
Comments (9)
So they bitterly cling to guns and religion and values? Where have I heard that before?
May 24, 2008 9:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
It comes from Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter With Kansas." Obama paraphrased poorly Frank's underlying thesis, e.g. that Republicans had managed to use social wedge issues like guns, gay marriage, abortion to win over rural, values-based voters. The result being that small town (rural) voters voted against their economic interests and in favor of their values. Whether rural/small town people are bitter is obviously debatable but it would be logical for them to be at least disappointed, if not bitter, given the overall decline in economic opportunity in their towns and communities. Pick the sector; agriculture, manufacturing, technology, whatever...many of the jobs have disappeared overseas and corporations have been the only ones profiting.
The entire "bitter" drama was such a canard, and HRC used it to fool that same block of voters into believing that Obama would ignore their values and interests because he was an elitist. What hogwash. HRC and McCain are much further from regular folks on the income and values scale than Obama, by a long measure. And both of them were quick to send someone elses sons and daughters to war instead of their own even though their own kids are old enough to serve. Chelsea works for a hedge-fund...wow...what a contribution for the good of the nation she's made in her early adult life.
Hopefully that same block of white, rural and blue-collar voters won't buy into the "values" bait-and-switch this time.
May 24, 2008 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought Obama said they cling to faith and guns and xenophobia out of bitterness. I thought he called his racist grandmother a typical white person. I must be thinking of someone else I guess.
May 24, 2008 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. You are just wrong. Again.
May 25, 2008 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, Otto. He was referring to YOUR racist grandmother.
May 25, 2008 10:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
You must not be thinking because he didn't outright call his grandmother a racist, rather recounted how she was at times afraid of young black men. He was being honest. (contrast with HRCs bosnia fantasy)
As for the bitter comment, it remains the canard it has always been. Go to the library and check out the Thomas Frank book. No doubt, Obama chose his words poorly but the underlying thesis of Frank's and Obama's comments has merit. (contrast with HRCs comment about hardworking white blue-collar voters...clearly meant to drive a values wedge into the democratic race)
Didn't you parrot these same comments on another thread about HRC's recent gaffe? At this point throwing out comments about Obamas grandmother and his bitterness remarks is sort of like throwing deck chairs off of the Titanic. HRC has already hit a few icebergs and is sunk.
May 24, 2008 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our candidates of both parties speak millions of words, many at the end of long, exhausting days. In our 24/7 camera phone YouTube world, they get absolutely no relief. Each utterance is disected, probed and poked, and god help 'em if they misspeak, no matter how trivial. While Obama may have chosen better words to communicate his point about the voting habits of blue-collar workers, his overall point is dead on. We need to extend our attention span to the larger picture; not the odd word, but the entire paragraph. I was disappointed to see Hillary jump aboard the "bitter" bandwagon when what Obama was conveying was a critical matter that the Dems have to come to grips with.
May 25, 2008 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
We make a mistake when we say that Ditto-heads vote against their own best interests. That assumes that they value economic interests more than non-economic ones. Many of us do, especially if our education and upbringing encourage us to be upwardly mobile to some extent. That is not true for many people in America and around the world. As hard as it is for some of us to accept, myself included, many people are more troubled by what Buddhists call "the other" than by any material or economic suffering. For someone offended or terrified by that which he or she does not understand, it is completely natural to embrace ideas that appear to provide a rationale for his or her angry or hateful feelings. This may appear to some of us to be the logic of a junkie who spends his last few dollars on a fix rather than something healthy, but it does not appear that way to the junkie. I agree with you that Barack's compassion and decency are the Republicans' greatest fears. He will not win over everyone who would benefit from his economic policies, but he will get some of them and that's all we need to win.
May 25, 2008 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. What intellegent responses. I guess the Hillbots and Ditto heads haven't seen my post,yet.
May 25, 2008 4:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
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