Obama: The Elitist

by Francisco Gonzalez ~ August 19, 2008

As noted in one of my previous posts, Obama was rated the most liberal U.S. Senator according to the National Journal’s 2007 vote ratings of politicians. This makes his comments at a fundraiser in left-wing San Francisco on April 6, 2008 all the more revealing. In trying to describe voters in the rural parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and why he wasn’t doing well winning them over, here’s what Obama told his liberal San Francisco audience:

Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama, then that adds another layer of skepticism…

… But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. 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.

Yes, ladies and gentleman: a man running for the American Presidency just described people in small towns as “bitter,” which makes them “cling to guns or religion” and that when they get frustrated, they become xenophobic towards immigrants and foreign trade. (And never mind the comment that they are cynical about government: weren’t our founders just as cynical?) With elitist sentiments such as these, as the American President, Obama will bring in his own antipathy towards Americans that he just doesn’t understand: those people in small towns that “cling to guns or religion.”

It is important to keep in mind that Obama made these statements while speaking at a fundraiser. His audience was a far left crowd in San Francisco. These comments were no mistake. He knew exactly the right buzz words to tell that audience in order for them to donate to his campaign and energize them to volunteer for him. He wanted them to feel that he was “one of them” and not one of “those” rural voters who believe in God and the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

With these comments, Obama did not “transcend” the partisan divide, but rather allied himself with the values of San Francisco liberals. So he was either being a typical politician by playing on their emotions out in San Francisco, or he is lying to all of us when he tells us he can transcend the partisan divide. These comments are only one of many examples we bring you in our book to show you who Barack Obama really is.