McCain and Obama teams joust over the regionalism divide
Team Obama quickly fired back when Team McCain attacked, demonstrating his refusal to be framed in Rove-ian terms, not even for an hour.
After the the publication of the Mayhill Fowler post I referred to in my earlier post, Team McCain viewed Obama’s comments about Pennsylvanians to a California audience as condescending and out of touch. And fired off a critique.
If this is the measure of Obama’s quick response team, McCain’s team will be easily baited into uncomfortable positions in the bigger campaign ahead. After all, he was defending the positions and preferences of small town Pennsylvanians and Midwesterners as justified after their neglect by previous presidential administrations over the past quarter century. I’ll leave it to all the small town people he spoke with and listened to, to determine if they felt he was insulting or defending them.
After all, people present at those conversations are smart enough to determine what they were. Team McCain has obviously become convinced reality can be spun to fool the live witnesses. Obama described their bitterness; it was McCain who treated them as fools.
One commenter at Marc Ambinder’s blog quotes McCain from a New Yorker article, making a comment similar:
“It’s the influx of illegals into places where they’ve never seen a Hispanic influence before,” McCain told me. “You probably see more emotion in Iowa than you do in Arizona on this issue. I was in a town in Iowa, and twenty years ago there were no Hispanics in the town. Then a meatpacking facility was opened up. Now twenty per cent of their population is Hispanic. There were senior citizens there who were-’concerned’ is not the word. They see this as an assault on their culture, what they view as an impact on what have been their traditions in Iowa, in the small towns in Iowa. So you get questions like ‘Why do I have to punch 1 for English?’ ‘Why can’t they speak English?’ It’s become larger than just the fact that we need to enforce our borders.”
Ambinder showed the GOP attack squad’s performance:
His comments have been distributed to allies on Capitol Hill, to members of the Pennsylvania press corps, to talk radio hosts across the country, to Republican state parties and to the congressional campaign committees. The National Republican Congressional Committee is using the statement to whack Chris Carney, an endorser of Obama and vulnerable frosh member of congress from Pennsylvania.
Yet Obama’s challenge to debate directly about the damage that matters, done TO the smalltown voters, will demonstrate how gutsy McCain really isn’t.
The progressive blogosphere should unite in asking the same question: “Why won’t John McCain debate Senator Obama about who’s really been damaging rural Americans, politicians pandering to corporate interests and wealthy Americans or the Midwestern Senator insisting it’s time for new leadership to bring those old destructive policies to an end?”
April 12th, 2008 at 10:21 am
What’s wrong with this picture? Not even a full week has passed since the nation was supposedly “commemorating” the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and MSNBC resident racist political propagandist Pat Buchanan threatens Senator Obama’s life on the 12pm time slot of that station’s news program with Alex Witt. In the midst of mischaracterizing Senator Obama’s “bitter” remarks to suit his right wing racist views- and pathological hatred of Senator obama- Pat Buchanan (while chuckling wryly) warned, “Obama better not go to deer hunting country with those comments.” First of all, doesn’t this constitute a threat against a candidate for the presidency of the United States (a Black candidate already endangered); and secondly don’t Buchanan’s remarks underscore the perception of MANY liberal progressive Americans that the right wing gun-toting racists are overly prone to commit such acts? Pat Buchanan is STILL allowed to spew his racist hatemongering after his op-ed on March 21st denigrating Black people as welfare, Section 8, food stamp, government dependent former slaves who should be grateful to America for bringing them over here on slave ships. NOTHING has been said about this, yet Senator Obama’s TRUTHFUL remarks about bitter, disillusioned (with government), economically deprived Americans are afforded the status of political TSUNAMI! Shame on Reuters, AP, and all of the misleading racist “mainstream” media! Where’s the outrage against the racist Pat Buchanan, and his cohorts at MSNBC?
April 12th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I’ve “Stuck to my guns’ all my life. It’s a old expression meaning “Hanging in there.” I’ll continue to “Stick (cling) to my guns” against John McCain’s eligibility to run for president in violation of the 14th Amendment no old or new law from Congress supposedly allowing McCain to become president can change the Constitution.
Like Obama talked about; I’m one who is bitter at those people like McShame and Clinton but I’m sticking to my guns against such abuse of power and Federal support for illegal immigration. I’m also optimistic toward the future praying for a change in political atitude back to working people and against Corporate greed.
April 12th, 2008 at 11:05 am
This reminds me of the outcry over Governor Dean’s comments about trying to reach out to young Republican men in their pickup trucks. Dean made sense then and Obama makes sense now.
I’d pay good money to watch and listen to a Obama-McCain debate. My guess is that Obama would kick McCain’s ass. Figuratively speaking of course.
April 12th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Big Papa, it’s an interesting point. Ex-Nixon officials and televangelists are granted an exemption to the laws about making threatening comments. Must be they hired the law firm of Bybee, Yoo, Addison, Ashcroft and Gonzalez years ago to write memos that made it legal.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Conservatives hate Affirmative Action because they say it gives the Colored Folk an advantage over White Folks that’s too unfair. So a guy like Obama comes along, who lived kinda poor for two years in Indonesia, then had a middle class upbringing in America.
Instead of Affirmative Action, he earned his way to Harvard, earned his way to edit the prestigious Law Review there, and now that makes him an ‘elitist’?
So a Black man can’t get the edge of Affirmative Action and can’t earn his way to the top either. He’ll be out of touch with real people. Because real people aren’t Black.
That’s how the lizardbrains of Compassionate Conservatives and Mavericks are different from traditional conservatives. Obama is now the first Muslim Christian foreign terrorist too black not black enough elitist poor boy candidate ever, to all those conservatives and Pat Buchanan wants to send him deerhunting with Dick Cheney.
George Bush, coddled from cradle to grave, and John McCain, the son and grandson of Admirals who married his way to extra wealthy? Why they’re just common simple everyday folk. They put their pants on one beer at a time, just like you and me.
What a bunch of hypocritical nancypants fantasies these conservatives spew.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Ah tole yah if’n we let dem Nigrahs aroun’ da wimminfolks, dey’d be soon enuff high-up muckity-muck lawyers of demselves an’ takin’ away our rights to have dem clean our outhouses still.
What kin dis jiveaxe boy possibly know about companies ruining our jobs an’ communities an’ backstabbing pollyticians? He can’t know ennything about anger at Da Man an’ da way we wuz robbed because he’s had everthing handed to him from da git-go an’ can’t even bowl.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
McCain calls Obama “elistist?!?” I doubt John McCain even knows the definition of the word!! Check out McCain’s biography and it becomes crystal clear that he his forebearers have been and continue to be the very definition of “elitist.” They have ALWAYS believed that they, by virtue of their self-perceived superiority, are better than the rest of us and, thus, are deserving of preferential treatment and entitlement. Look who McCain married, for instance. He climbed the social ladder by marrying onto it, and then he has the unmitigated gall to call his heiress wife–his cash cow, his entree into the social stratosphere, his connection to the politically powerful–the “c” word in front of a group of people!! This man is HATEFUL! Wake up and see him for what he is! Why, oh dear gods, WHY, do the American people seem to be sleep-walking all the time? Why do they let the media, their political party, their churches not only tell them what to accept as the truth but also tell them exactly how to interpret what they hear, what to think about what they hear, and what to regurgitate by rote without giving it a single rational thought? I’ve been warped into an alternate reality, and I don’t understand anything anymore!!
April 12th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I believe Barack Obama is absolutely right on this issue. Clinton McCain & Bush are born from privilege & do not understand anything about what the American people really feel about the USA. We the people see America going to hell in a bucket but politicians(except Obama & maybe a few others) have blind eyes & tin ears & don’t get it the way Obama does. Obama is telling the truth here in a way you will not hear from the others.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Btw, there’s several posts above this about the same topic, with the latest news in this one, posted a few minutes ago.
April 12th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Is it ore is it not true that Senator Obama has attended private schools all his life?
Is there a more elitist college than Harvard?
What sort of person feels the need to write two autobiographies before the age of forty?
Has anyone here read his books?
April 12th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Obama is now the first Muslim Christian foreign terrorist too black not black enough elitist poor boy candidate ever, to all those conservatives and Pat Buchanan wants to send him deerhunting with Dick Cheney.
GoyGone Wild, truer words were never spoken, but you forgot to work in the Pastor Wright angry fist-in-the-air scary black man theme…. which can’t fit with the secret madrassa-trained fereigner guy…. but never mind! He’s been out of the US of A! Which is highly suspicious.
Just forget the fact that McCain was born in Panama….
And totally deflect the discussion about the real facts: that rural America is suffering and is being totally ignored by the Bush administration. And they are getting kinda bitter about it.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
GGW comes up with a walk-off grand-slam in the bottom of the ninth:
Finally, boys and girls, “the good guys” have a candidate in Obama who is NOT willing to play the bland technocrat, not willing to sit back and say “I’ll be the more effective policy wonk; I have the better health care/tax/environmental, etc. plan…” Instead, it’s: BY GOD, ISN’T THIS THE FREAKING AMERICA YOU’VE ALWAYS DREAMED OF? And he’s fast on his feet, and his campaign is disciplined and limber.
AND we seem to have caught the MSM in one-too-many spin cycle: the effite, elitist Coastal-er worked for John “Nantucket windsurfing/Sun Valley skiing” Kerry. (Before that, it was portraying Al Gore as a stiff, boring, compulsive liar none of us would want to have a beer with.)
It seems the geniuses haven’t figured out that a Black man from Chicago is running against them. When the Republicans and their MSM (and to her utter shame, our other Democratic candidate) are trying to fight the last war, we may have finally have ourselves a winner.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
To A. Citizen: Obama hasn’t attended private schools all his life. There are many schools that provide its graduates greater advantages if they prove capable of graduating there. The definition of elitest is “someone who believes in rule by an elite group” so, no, I don’t believe Harvard has more graduates that believe that than perhaps Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Stanford, Vassar or many others. And each may specialize in certain areas but relatively average in others. So there’s no way to really quantify that except by extensive polling.
It’s standard for politicians to write autobiographies. Writing two could be a sign of egotism or literacy. Some lives are interesting enough to get two volumes or more. So I can’t assume any particular characteristic applies, as your question implies.
I’ve read neither of his books. I’ve read only excerpts and reviews. Which make them sound interesting.
Besides your questions, do you have specific points to make?
April 12th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
All the detractors are focusing on character assassination. Aint that just wunnerful … here we are with an economic crisis, global warming, fossil fuel shortage, mortgage meltdown and kids who don’t know where the capitol of the country is. They couldn’t spell it if they found it. I really don’t care where any of the candidates were born, where they went to school or who the screwed last week. I want someone who will follow through with trying to clean up the mess we’re in. I want someone to be honest if they don’t get it right the first time. I want someone who will persevere and not sell their soul in exchange for a safe place to hide when the rest of the shit hits the fan. People who are focusing on the minutiae and off topic conspiracy theories are dooming this country to electing another ‘Ronald McDonald or Burger King’ to lead us into the abyss.
Weigh the solutions each candidate presents. Contribute your suggestions to your congressman, and participate in the solution.
April 13th, 2008 at 10:30 am
I believe Obama began in private school in junior high in Hawaii. All the schools Kevin listed are elite schools, and Harvard is certainly among the elite, even if it is not the best in every way. That has nothing to do with the definition of elitism. Like others who are very intelligent and charming, there is no doubt Obama knew his way in the world was going to be at a high level. He was never going to be among those who end up in $300,00 houses in the suburbs. He did do community organizing for a while, then joined a corporate law firm, where he met his wife. They decided to be more service oriented, so she became a vice president at a huge university medical center and he went into politics. That he decided to run for president after two years in the U.S. Senate indicate he had this in mind some years before. His community organizing was a good way to build his resume, and his two autobiographies indicate he did also want to get himself into the public eye. Both of these are best-selling books, from which he’s made a good amount of money, not to mention his wife’s salary as VP of the university med center.
Obama’s real privileges are his high intelligence and literacy, his charm, his confidence (even his wife says arrogance), and even his nonthreatening blackness, all of which gave him the knowledge that he had an extraordinary life path before him. Whether there was family money or not, he knew he was going to rise to the top, probably from his junior high school years. These are major advantages, and the folks at the bottom of the food chain in Pennsylvania and elsewhere grew up in and live in an entirely different world than the one Obama has always known to be his. It is entirely possible he has no real understanding of their lives.
Having a privileged background, as Obama certainly has had, is not an impediment to doing well for the working class - FDR is certainly an example of that. Obama was pushed toward the left in economic policy, free trade issues and health care by John Edwards. Whether Obama’s “slips of the tongue,” and since he is so literate it’s unlikely he spoke differently than he meant to, represent a “superior” attitude and will hinder his campaign, will play out as they may. But I don’t think he really gets it. That is not his instinct.
April 13th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
As I am 74 yrs old and for the first time since the 60’s I think we the people will get a president that will really try for the well being of the working people. A president needs to have LEADERSHIP,DIPLOMACY,SERVICE,WISDOM,JUDGEMENT and BE A POLITICAL STRATEGIST. WE will have that with BARACK OBAMA!!!!!
April 13th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Sallywally; I disagree about Obama ‘not getting it’. And I address it as fully as I can here.
April 13th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Kevin’s right: Obama “gets it.” And the fact is, going to allegedly elitist educational institutions (including, btw, my own college class, dear old Columbia, ‘93) really has nothing to do with what is now properly called elitism, i.e., the shockingly few people sucking all the lifeblood out of this country, whether it be from the rural working man and woman, or even the urban bourgeois… a class in which the Clintons and McCains are now members of, and the Obamas are simply not.
Just amazing as to who is calling whom what. No surprise that the Clintons would resort to Republican talking points no matter how much it damages their own party… what else is new?
April 13th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
That’s Columbia ‘83. It wasn’t particularly good about teaching typing.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I think Obama’s words were deeper than people realize. Obama has pointed out exactly what the right wing machine has been doing for 30 years. They have been re-directing the argument to things like religion, guns, etc. when the real arguments are health care, wages, etc. Us voters have been so worried about a president taking our guns that we have forgotten how they have taken our standard of living and flushed it down the toilet. That’s exactly what Obama was saying.