Obama The Elitist Faces New Threats

"Is Obama's campaign over? It might be." That's John Hinderaker at Power Line commenting on the snotty, prejudiced, uninformed, demeaning Obama disparagement of many -- most? -- Americans:

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. So it's not surprising then that 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.

Ann Althouse disagrees with my characterization ("snotty, prejudiced ..."), saying that while it may be correct, it misses the point of who Obama really is, and why he said it:

But I must say that the original statement sounded like a typical law-school-liberal remark. I think it was quite sincere, and I'm rather sure he believed he was being admirably intellectual and raising politics to a new, higher level. Within a liberal law school environment, that statement would be heard as a thoughtful, compassionate insight.

Dem analyst Kirstin Powers, quoted by Rick Moran, underscores the same, with the words coming out of a liberal mouth:

“It comes off very badly,” Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers said of the small-town America remarks. “They are things that I think in a liberal world sound totally normal, and outside of that world I don’t know that he appreciates how it sounds. And it just sounds very elitist, and it sounds like he’s looking down on people.”

(Moran's post, BTW, is a good read, reminding us that elitism goes back to the founding fathers.)

Yes, it is only the liberal left that is foolish enough to tilt at campaigns to bring us all together in humble awe under their superior powers and insight. The rest of us realize that while Americans can work together for our common self interests, we don't really want to be brought together is some sort of phony and ultimately failed group hug all that much.

Not only does Obama assume the worst of a bunch of people I like a lot (the real, non-urban, non-elite folks), in his Indiana damage control statement he assumes that government is their only solution, their only ticket. And he knows he's caught, so he's spinning:

"People don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody is going to help them," Obama told a crowd at a Terre Haute, Ind., high school Friday evening. "So people end up voting on issues like guns and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. They take refuge in their faith and their community, and their family, and the things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington."

To which the McCain campaign replied:

"Instead of apologizing to small town Americans for dismissing their values, Barack Obama arrogantly tried to spin his way out of his outrageous San Francisco remarks. Only an elitist who attributes religious faith and gun ownership to bitterness would think that tax cuts for the rich include families who make $75,000 per year. Only an elitist would say that people vote their values only out of frustration. Barack Obama thinks he knows your hopes and fears better than you do. You can't be more out of touch than that."

Spinning like a drill bit, digging himself deeper and deeper, as he now shows us that he doesn't even understand why we vote and how we feel -- yet he's supposed to be the one to bring us together? As Reason puts it:

While Obama is indeed engaging in spin, there is a far more disturbing aspect to his interpretation. He misses the essential nature of modern culture. People don't end up focusing on issues like the right to bear arms, gay marriage, faith-based and family-based issues, and the like, because of bitterness against Washington or a sense that they can't effect change there. People focus on these issues because modern American political culture is, effectively, about subcultures, variety, pursuing parochial aims, and shaping one's identity and personal agendas independently of the state.

So getting back to Hinderaker, is Obama's campaign over? I've seen him worm his way out of many gaffes before, including the mega-gaffe of Rev. Wright. It's like the tides around a rock in the ocean -- they rush up to embrace, then Obama does something truly hateful or stupid and they fall back in shock, then, finding nowhere else to go, they rush back in for an embrace.

Many are so committed to "change" and to electing a black president, and so repulsed by Hillary and the Bush legacy that they would vote for Obama even if horns sprang out of his forehead and a tail from his butt. But he can't win on those voters alone; he desperately needs cross-over voters to beat Hillary, and then beat McCain.

In small towns across America today, people are reading the news, watching the news and perusing the Internet. Yes, Barack, they do -- that behavior isn't limited to big town America. And last straws are being placed on the backs of many Obama supporters.

But there is something supernatural about this man and I for one am not going to count him out until the last ballot is counted. And then some.

Hat-tip: memeorandum