I’ll take mine with bitters

Unless you’ve been on a weeks-long journey through the wilds of Borneo, you’ve no doubt heard about Barack Obama’s recent comment concerning bitter Americans. This is what Barry is reported to have said at a fund-raiser in ‘Frisco:

You go into some of 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. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, 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.

Hillary Clinton rejoindered with:

I saw in the media it’s being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are bitter. Well, that’s not my experience. As I travel around Pennsylvania, I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive, who are rolling up their sleeves. They are working hard everyday for a better future, for themselves and their children.

John McCain’s campaign responded with:

It shows an elitism and condescension toward hard-working Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking. It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans. — McCain advisor, Steve Schmidt

I don’t think any of ‘em are really out of touch (except maybe Hillary), they’re just touched (especially Hillary). Actually, I think Obama has a far-better grasp of realpolitik than the other two.

First: He’s right that a lot of people are bitter with the way things are going. After all, the latest New York Times “Are You Happy?” poll says 81 percent feel things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track. (I’ll discuss this further in an upcoming post.)

Second: When identifying the issues to which these bitter people cling, he’s basically targeting Republican issues. He knows he isn’t going to get the hard-core conservative Republican vote, so it doesn’t matter if he yanks their chains. To the contrary, in so doing he effectively reinforces his popularity with the hard-core liberal Democrats, to whom he was speaking at the time. After all, right now his fight is with Hillary.

Third: He’s sending a subtle message to the squishy middle. He’s telling them that he knows they’re not mindless single-issue voters. He’s offering himself as the candidate that will honestly address important issues without falling back on boilerplate positions.

Senator Obama has said many times in this campaign that Americans are understandably upset with their leaders in Washington for saying anything to win elections while failing to stand up to the special interests and fight for an economic agenda that will bring jobs and opportunity back to struggling communities. — Obama spokesman, Tommy Vietor

Given that nearly half the population now believes all good things flow from government, and almost all the rest accept it as a fact-of-life whether they like it or not, Obama knows how to tap into the growing “when do I get mine?” block of voters.

Phil