The Impact of Elitism

While everyone is talking about the recent claims made by Obama, claiming he is elitist, I think it’s interesting to look at the impact of this fiasco upon the campaign. Despite many people being angry and the Clinton campaign running ads showing people that were hurt by the comments, new polls indicate that Obama is reaching new highs in the polls, particularly in like Pennsylvania. There are some interesting conclusions to draw from this. Namely, there is a strong argument to be had that the top concern of many voters might be which candidate they view has a better chance of dealing with actual problems, like the economy, than their perception of the candidate. This plays well into the Obama campaign’s counter-ad regarding the controversy. The new ad shows Obama talking to a variety of local groups and has a voiceover make comments about how Clinton is stuck in the same game of Washington politics while only Obama will be able to actually create change on issues like rising gas prices (and then shows a sign for gasoline). It will be interesting to see how Pennsylvania will play out given that Obama has closed the lead but the same sort of thing happened in California and didn’t work out well for Obama.

New Polls showing PA is close:
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/clinton_stalls_obama_in_pa_pol.html


ADDITION- new gallup poll showingn Obama's lead is the largest yet:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/106537/Gallup-Daily-Obama-51-Clinton-40.aspx

Obama -- a crowd pleaser

As much as I agree that Obama's comments were elitist and a great fallacy of his campaign, I also think that media is taking the wrong spin on this issue. I have a hard time believing that everything a candidate says on a campaign trail is a direct indication of what he thinks or how he relates to an issue. Rather, most of the candidate’s positions and speeches reflect what his or her particular audience wants to hear. However, some candidates manage to maintain their own identity and stay firmly on the positions they believe in even though they are unpopular. Barack Obama, unfortunately, is not one of them (even though he is constantly praising his vote against the war when everyone voted for it). His comments at the San Francisco fund raiser attended by the millionaires is just another proof that he will tell whatever he thinks the public wants to hear. The way he referred to the rural people of Philadelphia supports the stereotype that the participants of the fund raiser had, and by reinforcing it, Obama wanted to blend in and be closer to them. It does not necessarily indicate that he shares that opinion.

His campaign’s earlier slip with NAFTA comments in Ohio in addition to this gaffe in San Francisco prove that Obama is a crowd pleaser and is ready to say whatever he perceives would be popular. This is one of the most dangerous characteristics a wining candidate can have because it can negatively effect his electability in a general election.