Foot in his mouth?

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.

Is there a serious observer, anywhere, of American life, or of American politics, or of human behavior, domestic or foreign, who doubts the truth of these comments? And yet, when Barack Obama says them, Hillary Clinton and John McCain fall all over themselves denouncing him for his contempt of the fine working class people of Pennsylvania. McCain's spokesman gasped with horror: "an elitism and condescension towards hardworking 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."

Yeah, right. What's breathtaking is McCain's condescension in trusting that voters don't know politics when they hear it.

Note that Obama never asserted that Pennsylvanians were wrong in their beliefs about religion, or guns, or immigration, or trade. What he did point out, in his full statement, was that for most workers in industrial states, the number one issue is the economy, and how economic trends have lowered their standard of living over the past two decades. But these workers have given up any hope that politicians can or will do anything about the economy. As a result, they focus their political attention on other issues, ones they believe they can still influence.

Is this insulting? Is this condescening? Is this even controversial?

But, ladies and gentlemen, this is 2008. It's all about spin, isn't it? If Pennsylvania voters -- or people anywhere -- are told often enough that they have been insulted, eventually they begin to believe it. You don't have to convince them entirely of the insult, just make them feel vaguely uneasy that where there's smoke, there may also be fire.

Obama's comments were right on target. His mistake -- and what makes him refreshing and frustrating at the same time -- is his political naïveté. He forgets that he's waging a political campaign. He's not offering a university lecture on political science and sociology. The voters don't mind facing some hard truths, if presented to them clearly and tactfully. But, to some extent, they have to be stroked. They need to feel respected. They don't want to feel that some Harvard boy is looking down on them.

On the other hand, I worked with millworkers during several summer vacations. I listened to them talk during breaks. Industrial jobs that got workers dirty and greasy certainly did not prevent them from being politically aware and sophisticated. Clinton and McCain are kidding themselves -- and are themselves being condescending -- if they believe that laborers take their attacks on Obama at face value, that workers don't understand the motivations of his opponents.
But someone also needs to vet Obama's speeches, and even his casual comments. He has to avoid opening himself to political attacks of this sort, even though his campaign will be less open, less exciting, and less thought-provoking as a result.

If elected, Obama will have a "bully pulpit," providing him many opportunities to show us new ways to think about old problems. A close campaign for the presidency, however, may not always be the smartest place to speak from the heart and to sound creative.

Sometimes a little bunkum and malarkey are called for, as Clinton and McCain are all too well aware.