A "Teapot Tempest"

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette posted an editorial on Saturday that discussed the recent war of words between Senators Obama and Clinton over remarks each has made that have led to intense scrutiny, criticism, and supposed backlash. The Post-Gazette, obviously an important political player this week because of their influence within Pennsylvania, the site of this week's important Democratic primary, endorsed Senator Obama a few days ago and felt the need to comment on the commotion that has been raised, primarily on the subject of Obama's recent comments in San Francisco on the ideology of working-class America.

The paper calls Hillary's attempts to repeatedly condone these comments of "bitter" Americans and their need to "cling" to guns and God, as well as Barack's mentions of Hillary's false statements on her visit to Bosnia as First Lady, merely distractions and part of the "gotcha" politics that Americans have grown to hate. The paper correctly argues that these squabbles over misstatements and mistakes have moved the dialogue away from the crucial issues that need to be dealt with, like the failing economy, mortgage foreclosures, and the future of the war in Iraq. By discussing issues that will not affect the future of this country, as the paper argues, Americans are not getting to hear the debate that they need to hear, and they certainly did not hear it Wednesday night during the debate on ABC.

These issues are distractions because they have obscured the facts about the candidates, as the Post-Gazette points out how the elitist label would actually be more applicable to Hillary, given her educational and family background, as well as how well the GOP has done over the years at arguing that they are the party of the average American (because of (mis-)statements like Barack's), all while cutting taxes for the richest citizens, championing the interests of corporate America, and misleading citizens about the reasons for going to war. The paper also mentions that these issues can be used as distractions by the GOP in the general election campaign, as they argue that John McCain would rather be pushing his personal support for guns and religion versus Obama's stance on these issues, rather than discussing how badly his party's President has handled the economy and the ongoing wars overseas.

Therefore, the paper urges Pennsylvania voters, and all Americans for that matter, to reject this kind of political distraction, or "teapot tempest," and base their vote on who "is better equipped to lead America out of Iraq and back from the precipice of recession, not who made the fewest gaffes." A reminder along these lines seems like it should be unnecessary, but in a primary season that has dragged on so long without any new conversations of substance, it appears that voters need to be told to get their priorities straight one more time.

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