It looks like Obama is going to get nasty in his “big speech” today. It’s not hard to figure out why. Hillary is hitting him hard, and some polls -- including the ARG shows his numbers in Pennsylvania sliding hard. In addition, Rasmussen shows a widespread negative reaction to his anti-small town outburst.
For those of us who follow this stuff closely, Obama's controversial comments don't come as much of a surprise. After all, National Journal ranked him the most liberal senator for a reason. And even if one accepts that there are some flaws in their ranking system, it being an election year -- and Obama being on the road missing votes a lot -- the guy has a standard liberal record on a) spending b) taxes c) guns and d) pretty much everything else, though those points are particularly disturbing.
And if anyone believes that the "nice" Obama is the real one -- and that "San Francisco" Obama is the bogus one, Ann Althouse has excellent post here, which includes this stunner of an excerpt:
“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. Some of your colleagues might think you were excessively, squishily tolerant of what they see as ignorant, bigoted people, but I don't think they'd push you to be more understanding of the alien culture you were observing.”
This is the problem. Obama's politics, in my view, are fundamentally little removed from the typical attitude of “I’m privileged and feel guilty about it, but because I’m smarter than you (and have a Harvard degree to prove it) I know everything about your pathetic little life and what is required to fix it.” It’s not just snobby, it’s nanny-statist… and it’s not just conservatives or hardcore libertarians who hate that. Normal people—moderates and independents-- hate that. That’s a lot of why they hated Dukakis (and only somewhat less) John Kerry.
... Which brings me to Obama's "big speech" today. He plans to go on the attack against both Hillary and McCain. He will default to his anti-Washington rhetoric, and imply that McCain is out-of-touch. He will imply McCain is too close to lobbyists, and say he never takes money from corporate lobbyists, himself -- all the while never telling us he takes money from lobbying firms.
This is the real Obama. And Americans are just now beginning to see him.
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