Obama Comment Echoes Dean and Edwards [View All]

[RBInMaine]

I'll agree that Obama's "bitterness" phrasing wasn't necessarily the greatest, and anyone has to be careful about using too broad a brush because folks don't like being "labeled". However, we all speak in generalities, and Obama has certainly seen PLENTY of bitter, angry, and frustrated blue collar folks in his travels. (As well as plenty of bitter, angry, and frustrated white collar folks.)

Recall in '03 that Howard Dean said, "The guys who drive the pickups with rebel flags should be voting with us because we support their economic interests." He was obviously saying rural red staters vote against their economic interests in favor of the R-driven wedge issue of guns, god, gays, etc. He apologized for using the words, "Pickup truck driving rebel flaggers" but he stood by his larger point: that we have to find ways to persuade these folks to vote for us and their job interests again instead of allowing the R's to capture them on the divisive cultural issues in which they take refuge because of distrust of government promises.

John Edwards' entire campaign this time around was about working class anger and frustration and how we have to get them back to a Democratic Party which used to strongly be for those interests. He was out to really move the party back to those working class roots, saying that we have been out of touch, that they see us as out of touch with their anger and economic issues: an extremely populist message.

Obama was saying the SAME thing as Dean and Edwards: that we are not reaching bitter, angry, frustrated working class voters well enough because they no longer trust political promises, and what they ARE willing to trust are cultural concerns like guns, god, gays, immigration, etc. We therefore have to change Washington and convince them that we WILL act on their economic concerns. Maybe not phrased as well as it should have been, but what he was saying was clear in context and even clearer in his speech in Indiana.

If Hillary fails to acknowledge working class frustration, and if the Dem party refuses to understand how such frustration drives many of them to distrust government on economics therefore leaving them to embrace and vote on wedge issues, then we as a party will continue to lose their votes to the R's.