Right. OK. So.
One of the things I have fretted about ad nauseam is that I perceive Obama's whole core message to be too postmaterialist. His focus on thinks like post-partisan and racial reconciliation, a change in the "tone" of politics, on political reform and such non-bread and butter issues, I always thought, was a flaw.
Sure, it was perfectly in tune with the hopes, dreams and aspirations of liberal college graduates who have accordingly flocked to him in wild enthusiasm from the start - the kind of people who of course are all for narrowing the income gap and doing something about poverty, but for whom that's an abstract issue, as they themselves can comfortably enjoy or at least dream of a pleasant enough middle class life.
But it was a focus whose main weakness was its narrow reach to only those who do want to dream of change - rather than those who fear it, and for good reason. That part, I always thought, Hillary got right. Not just is she a passionate wonk on bread-and-butter issues, but she knows that most people in the bottom half or third of society justifiably just want some protection against the increasingly wily vagaries of the global economy, unfettered after the decades of liberalisation, deregularisation and globalisation. Forget yearning for a more ethical brand of politics; can you help us weather the looming economic storms?
From Obama's incomplete health insurance plan to all his talk of reaching across the aisle or even his greater willingness to try experimental reform in education (not a bad idea, but a tricky one that could easily be exploited by the anti-government folk), that's something thats worried me, and the reason why I'd much rather have had Edwards. Well, Ive said all that a dozen times.
Anyway, touring Pennsylvania, Obama seems to either have gotten the message (in a way that he failed to credibly do in Ohio), or at least have adopted more of it. Maybe just for now, but hopefully the intensity of this need will sink in for good. I wanted to quote a NYT article about that, but foremost, I wanted to lift a paragraph from it that made the underlying point, briefly but in a way I havent seen elsewhere:
Quote:Voters here, as in neighboring Ohio, where Mr. Obama lost the white and aging blue-collar vote, tend to elect politicians whose language rarely soars and whose policy prescriptions come studded with detail.
"The problem with talking about hope all the time is that these are not hopeful lands; Obama is talking change to people who equate change with life getting worse," said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic Party consultant who has studied the political culture of these working-class states [..].
OK, so anyway, here's some excerpts overall from the article - it's a good one.
