Obama looks like an elitist snob

Right now, all the news stories are on Clinton's side. An AP poll out today has Hillary with a comfortable lead over McCain, while Obama ties him. SC Gov Mike Easley is endorsing Hillary. Obama has to endure all the Pastor Wright coverage.

Jay Cost has a wonderful post on Obama's problems in Appalachia. This is troubling for Obama-backers, because the Democrats need to win these states (and their electoral votes): Ohio (20), PA (21), West Virginia (5), Arkansas (6), and Missouri (11). John Kerry won only PA, and fell 19 electoral votes shy of taking the White House. Ohio would have done it for him. But so would have a combination of the other three: Missouri (where he lost by 7%), Arkansas (where he lost by 9%), and West Virginia (13%). Al Gore, who also won PA, would have won with any one of those states.

Obama has a big culture problem. He's getting hammered right now as an elitist snob. The article I cited yesterday also said this: "Obama is a Harvard-trained lawyer. Clinton went to Yale. Both pitch their economic message to middle America, but it’s often Obama who attracts college-educated, affluent voters and Clinton who pulls the working class." The same article had a picture of Obama playing hoops. This was what I suggested he do a little while back.

It's a clubby ivy-league elite that runs this country, and it's in the Appalachian culture trait, derived from their Scotch-Irish political culture, to be at odds with this Eastern establishment. To win these voters you need to get off your high horse and at least look like you are one of the people. If Hillary Clinton wins this primary election, she will have an enormous advantage in the general election, because she will automatically appeal to this group. She's their candidate; they voted her candidacy to victory.

This is a plus that was not at all obvious for Hillary going into this race. If she had sweeped to victory, she would not be as strong of a general election candidate as she might be if she eaks this thing out. She'll have a built-in appeal to just the group she needs to win in the general, which is precisely the group with which she seems like an awkward NY liberal.

Obama has not learned the Bush lesson. The Bush lesson is that you move to Texas, buy a ranch, acquire a Texas accent, and strain every nerve to appear as one of the people. Then everybody forgets your uber-privileged blue-blood background. Obama didn't have anything handed to him, so he doesn't see the issue with elitism. But as Karl Rove said in Newsweek: "It's not where you start in life, it's where you end up."