soapbox time!

You know, in Barack Obama I finally had a presidential candidate that I actually admired. If I wasn't necessarily ga-ga about the idea of him being president, that's basically because I don't think that it's actually possible for me to go ga-ga for a politician, no matter who it is.

Then he had to go and put his foot in his damn mouth. I'm not about to switch who I'm voting for next week, but I'm not going to gloss it over and pretend it's not an issue either. It's not an issue of him being "out of touch," it's about him acting like a condescending ass. He not only said that religious people and gun owners have turned to those things because of economic issues, he also put them on the same level as racism, nationalism, and bigotry. That's not exactly small potatoes when you're trying to convince those people to put you in charge of them. It's condescending at best, insulting at worst.

Being from a somewhat depressed, small Pennsylvania town myself (not coal-country depressed, but not exactly thriving either), I would like to point out that what he said is actually true for a small minority of people, but is still horseshit. I'd also like to say that for about as long as I've had a political sensibility, I've always bristled at the myth that liberals are out of touch elitists. That's horseshit, too, but the reason that Republicans are able to convince so many people that that's true is because people keep giving them perfect ammo to do it, like Obama just did, and if he keeps it up, he's going to end up just like John Kerry. Fortunately he's probably got people to remind him every day never to say something like that again.

Again, barring unforeseen circumstances, I'm still voting for Obama next week (and in November too, John McCain scares the hell out of me), but it's naive to pretend that this isn't a concern, if not about his personal views toward small town people, than at least from an electability standpoint. If you compare his comments with Hillary Clinton's deluded fantasy about sniper fire in Bosnia, I would say Obama's is the bigger faux pas, and more likely to bite him in the ass later on.