John Baer: Decades of working-class neglect - now that's insulting

[babylonsister]

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/john_baer/20080414_John_Baer__Decades_of_working-class_neglect_-_now_that_s_insulting.html

John Baer: Decades of working-class neglect - now that's insulting

By John Baer
Philadelphia Daily News

Daily News Political Columnist

snip//

What's offensive to me is suggesting that small-town, working-class, gun-toting and/or religious Pennsylvanians are somehow injured by a politician's words.

Are you kidding me?

They're injured all right, but the injury is long-term and from lots more than "just words."

They've been injured from decades of neglect by political cultures in Washington and Harrisburg driven by special interests.

They're injured by a system of isolated, insulated political leadership that protects itself and the status quo above all else.

snip//

Another irony is that the candidate running to effect change where change is needed, and to offer hope to those without it, is suddenly tagged as somehow diminishing those he seeks to serve.

So the question is whether Obama effectively defuses this, as he did the controversy surrounding his former minister. And that remains to be seen.

Just don't tell me that he insulted a state or, given his background, that he's an out-of-touch elitist.

And I especially don't want to hear such arguments from a candidate who spent decades in the bubble of a governor's mansion, the White House and the U.S. Senate, and under the blanket of $109 million income during the last eight years.

Pennsylvanians might cling to religion and guns. I hope they don't cling to stupidity.

[truedelphi]

1. K & R'ed n/t

[DJ13]

2. K&FinR!

:kick:

[OhioChick]

3. Let's hope they don't

cling to stupidity. I don't think they will. My family is from PA and I talk to many of them frequently. They love Obama and live in a small town that has been devastated by job loss. They are indeed bitter......bitter that HRC and McCain are misconscrewing Obama's words.