Bitter Midwesterners for Obama

My pal at Moonraking is embracing the bitterness, so I am joining his movement… Depending on which part of the “bitter” remarks you hear, Obama either sounds like a condescending jerk (“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,”) or, with others (“You go into 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…And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not“), like he is just giving a savvy summary and update of one of my favorite recent books on US politics, What’s the Matter with Kansas.

It is interesting, if unsurprising, even in his own terms, to see a version of Thomas Frank’s economic populism–one that has been consistently a part of Obama’s message–reframed as elitist condescension due to the phrasing Obama chose. But it was also heartening to hear the crowd behind Hilary in the audio clip on NPR this morning reacting negatively as she tried to make hay out of this. Maybe it will help Obama in the end by finally getting us past the Rev. Wright BS, and giving him a chance to emphasize the ways he wants to reach out to the justifiably embittered.

Of course, the “worst” part of what he’s saying is actually a central part of his campaign and his appeal, and something that was praised as brave and insightful in his “race” speech: ie, that the divisions that keep the country split apart are a distraction from our real issues, and that we can have hope to get past those divisions if we can instead focus on coming together to address the real problems. (In the race speech, he was praised for bravely acknowledging the that economic and social pressure on the white working class can produce anger at blacks and immigrants.)

Of course, I am clearly both bitter and a member of the liberal elite…

PS: After posting this I followed some links through and found that Talking Point Memo had put up a clip from a 2004 interview with Charlie Rose exploring the same issues… And Charlie even brings up What’s the Matter With Kansas.