A piece of business first: I just deleted 5,500 comments that were being held in moderation. The vast majority were clearly offers of hardcore pics of various celebrities, but I didn’t read all of them, so if you left a comment that never appeared, I probably just deleted it. But that’s not the point of this post.
I’m excited that Pennsylvania’s primary is actually going to matter this year, but I haven’t yet made up my mind. In the early days of primary season, I was leaning strongly toward Hillary; now, though, I’m leaning more toward Barack. But that’s not the point of this post.
Obama’s getting a lot of flack for his comments about Pennsylvanians. To recap:
“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Clinton, as everyone knows, responded by saying that Obama is “out of touch”.
I disagree. I know that Obama’s comments don’t paint the most flattering view of Pennsylvanians, and it’s not representative of all Pennsylvanians, but I think they do display a pretty good understanding of the mentality around here. I also think it’s important to note that he made these comments in San Francisco, where people are pretty unlikely to have any understanding of Pennsylvania attitudes and politics. In that context, those comments sound like a defense of the pessimism, bigotry, small-mindedness, and, yes, bitterness, so pervasive in our small towns and even big cities, rather than a condemnation.
Most of Pennsylvania is alienated from what’s happening in California and New York and even D.C., and the issues that are relevant in those places are not always the issues that are relevant here. And it’s awfully hard to untangle and understand the web of reasons that life here is so different than it is in the places time hasn’t forgotten, so it becomes awfully easy to blame the lack of good jobs on globalization and immigrants. And when people in Washington start talking about “taking away my guns” or ensuring that I have healthcare when all I really want is a job, well, one can see how it might be baffling.
There is a divide in America — there are many divides in America — and denying the differences in perspectives is not likely to help bridge those divides. Pennsylvanians are, as Clinton said, resilient, but we do, for the most part, have a very different worldview than New Yorkers or — especially — San Franciscans. Neither perspective is more “right” than the other(s), but if the people in power occupy one world and the people in rural Pennsylvania occupy another, recognizing those differences can look like elitism. It’s not, at least not necessarily. It’s realism.
Sadly, the comments from Obama probably killed any slim hope he had of winning in Pennsylvania. It’s sad because, as you have written, the comments basically are realistic. Having lived the better part of the first 23 years of my life in the state, I can attest to that personally. Whether he should have made the comments from a political standpoint is debatable, but the message itself rings true.
It’s also sad because we really need somebody like Obama, somebody who might actually begin to take on special interests as part of an effort to make reason, rather than money, the driving force behind our government. Until that happens, we have no hope of getting where we need to go. Obama is the first candidate I’ve heard really get into this issue and the first for whom I’ve felt genuine excitement in a long time.
Additionally, it’s sad because Obama, maybe more than any other candidate, offers the most chance of bridging those divides of which you write.
My understanding is that at this point Clinton needs to not just win Pennsylvania, but to win something like 63% of the Pennsylvania vote. That doesn’t seem likely, but I guess there must be something I don’t know or else she’d have dropped out by now.
It’s all about superdelegates at this point. I don’t think either candidate is going to have enough pledged delegates to win, so it’s possible for Hillary to swing enough of the superdelegates to her side to secure the nomination. Assuming Hillary wins Pennsylvania, she’ll have the ability to make the case that she’s more electable because she won all of the large states in the primaries.
A few weeks ago, I wasn’t that concerned. But she’s got all of the momentum now, and he looks like he’s wearing down.