Barack's gift to Hillary (and the Republicans)

The bloom is off the rose. Barack Obama's seemingly effortless protean political skill to make people read into him their hopes and desires has hit a major roadblock. Obama made this remark at a fundraiser in San Francisco, which was captured on tape by a blogger:

"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."

The carnage followed instantly. Then came Obama's response while campaigning in Indiana:

"I was in San Francisco talking to a group at a fundraiser and somebody asked how’re you going to get votes in Pennsylvania? What’s going on there? We hear that it's hard for some working class people to get behind you’re campaign. I said, 'Well look, they’re frustrated and for good reason. Because for the last 25 years they’ve seen jobs shipped overseas. They’ve seen their economies collapse. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their pensions. They have lost their healthcare. And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said 'We’re going to make your community better. We’re going to make it right' and nothing ever happens. And of course they’re bitter. Of course they’re frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you. And so people end up -- they don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington. So I made this statement -- so, here’s what's rich Sen. Clinton says ‘No, I don’t think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack’s being condescending.’ John McCain says, ‘Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he’s obviously out of touch with people.' Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain -- it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch? Sen. Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I’m out of touch? No, I’m in touch. I know exactly what’s going on. I know what’s going on in Pennsylvania. I know what’s going on in Indiana. I know what’s going on in Illinois. People are fed up. They’re angry and they’re frustrated and they’re bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America."

Then to Steelworkers in Pittsburgh:

"Senator Clinton and Senator McCain seem to be singing from the same hymn book, saying I am out of touch and I am an elitist because I said a lot of folks are bitter about their economic circumstances," said Barack Obama. "Now, it may be that I chose my words badly, it is not the first time and will not be the last. But when I hear my opponents, both of whom spent decades in Washington, saying I am out of touch, it is time to cut through the rhetoric and look at the reality."

Yikes. The cure is worse than the disease. When making a major blunder, don't make it worse by accusing other people. Just apologize and be done with it. That's hard to do. It's hard to accept that you're not really a golden boy who never makes mistakes. But this thing would go away a lot more quickly if Obama had issued a short apology, rather than a lengthy, rambling diatribe about how he's in touch. It sounded very condescending, proving Hillary's point rather than rebutting it. The whole "it may be that I chose my words badly" baloney compounds the problem.

When you are misquoted as a politician, you have the right to complain. But when you make a mistake, you should not play it off as someone else's fault. At least, not in the blinding glare of the presidential spotlight.

This is why it is so silly for people to say that Hillary should drop out because she's only got a 5% chance of winning. No one can calculate that. No one can know what can happen tomorrow. One day Obama's tied things up in PA, the next he makes this comment and falls 20 points. And that's exactly what happened. Hillary has been waiting what probably seems like a lifetime for her for this slip. Obama simply hadn't made one to this point. The bloom was still on the rose. Hillary could raise question after question, and insinuate that Obama is a gamble of a candidate (or come right out and say it's a roll of the dice, as Bill did), but nothing seemed to stick. This will stick. It will haunt Obama for the rest of the campaign. It plays right into the hands of Hillary and McCain.

In short, Obama has pulled a Huckabee. Huckabee was never able to break out of his base of voters in states where he didn't have a lot of time to campaign--that is, everywhere but Iowa. It was a vicious cycle--he had to appeal to his base for votes and cash, yet that only boxed him in more as a candidate who lacked broad appeal. He really made no effort to break out of this box, as I comment in this post from mid-January.

Obama has put himself in a box now. It was the box others were trying to put him in, and it's the box he fits into but wants (and needs) to transcend. That's why this is such a huge story. It fits a narrative for Obama, as well as portrays him as a certain kind of person (aloof, arrogant, cerebral).

It is the perfect disaster, really, in that it turns all his positives into negatives. In politics your strong qualities can also be liabilities, and your liabilities can be turned into positives.

• Obama is the unity candidate, rising above the petty partisan squabbles. Now he's up there and looking down at us and we realize how disconnected to us he is, uncaring, condescending.
• Obama's a candidate who can inspire people. Well, he can't inspire just the type of voter the Democrats need to win.
• Obama has a broad appeal. Yet now this appeal seems based on the fact that he doesn't believe in anything, and is able to say anything to attract support. If he said what he really believed he would lose support.
• Obama is super-smart. But now he's an elitist who distrusts common folk.
• Obama speaks his mind and doesn't lie and fudge like the Clintons. Not now; he says something way different in private than in public.

In every respect it's a disaster. Hillary's got a greater than 5% chance now. If she wins by over 20 points in PA next week, how could she be denied the nomination?--that'll be her argument.

Obama's statement was worse than a crime; it was a mistake.