lundi, avril 14, 2008

Obama's Achilles Heel

Perhaps none of the remaining Presidential candidates (where are you, Mike Huckabee?) can avoid the stigma of the privileged life. The Clintons made many millions of dollars last year. John McCain has access to lots of money through his wife. Obama is a best-selling author. None of them, whatever Hillary claims about her roots in Pennsylvania, has a good sense of what ordinary people have to go through to pay for food or gas in their cars.

I'm guessing Obama hurt himself with his comments about "bitter" working class voters because they got suckered by a guy from Texas who assumed the mantle of the vox populi-and then turned out to be simply a redneck whose fortune comes, more or less, from a sales tax (and this from a man who professes to hate the idea of taxing anything). Hopefully people are going to be more discerning, this time.

The venue where Obama dug himself a hole-a private fundraiser- is important, because it shows that he might have let his guard down when he felt he was safe with friends. No one is safe in an election season. He showed not only a tin ear, but a lack of empathy for people's suffering-sad, yes, but perhaps to be expected.

Nonetheless, of the three, we have the most reason to expect that it is the Senator from Illinois who can best represent the very people whose beliefs he reduced to a couple of dismissory phrases. We don't know yet if he can show the people of Pennsylvania, and the country, that he is sincere about help for working people. Heaven knows they/we need it.

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