Letter From America
The bitter truth
AS expected, Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, 55% to 45%. Although Barack Obama outspent Hillary 3 to 1 in TV advertising, the Democratic party establishment led by Governor Ed Rendell and the mayors of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh delivered the state to Hillary, who was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and managed to sell herself as the hometown girl.
Pennsylvania is the second oldest state, and the older voters overwhelmingly favoured Hillary, as did women, the white working class, the churchgoers and gun owners. The young and the African Americans voted overwhelmingly for Obama.
Call it the curse of Harvard! After John F. Kennedy in 1960, no Harvard alumnus has won the US presidency on the Democratic ticket. Two of the more recent nominees, Michael Dukakis in 1988 and Al Gore in 2000, considered shoo-ins, lost.
They were too cool to connect with working class white voters. His loss to Hillary in the Pennsylvania raises questions about whether Obama, a Harvard law graduate, is afflicted with the same disease.
A Dukakis TV ad in 1988 proclaimed: "They want to package a president. Wouldn't you rather elect one?" I distinctly remember thinking: "They expect people to understand this ad?" Typical of Dukakis's Ivy League mentality, that ad, like the rest of his campaign, went way over the average American's head.
Hillary is a child of privilege. She attended Wellesley College and Yale Law School. But like the super-rich Kennedys, she connects with the poor folks. She may not be one of them, but her game attempt to identify with them made the hunters, gun-owners and bowlers of Pennsylvania prefer her two to one over Obama. (In spite of Hillary's gimmicks, it was a tie with the beer drinkers, at 44 %.)
On her campaign trail, Hillary repeatedly badgered Obama for "elitism." She may have a point. Although Obama was raised by a single mother and was on food stamps early in his life, that impoverished Obama is hard to detect in the present Barack.
Instead, his suave demeanour is all Ivy League; more reflective of Columbia and Harvard, both of which he attended, rather than his lower middle class upbringing.
An incident in a Pennsylvania diner during the recent campaign encapsulated the Barack's incompatibility with the working-class whites. The owner of the diner offered Obama a cup of coffee. Obama declined and asked for a glass of orange juice instead. That is elitist and suicidal! Candidates never ask for a substitute. They gulp whatever is offered without fuss. Just ask the whisky-downing, beer-drinking, duck-shooting, gun-loving, and, consequently, Pennsylvania primary-winning Hillary!
In the Philadelphia debate on April 16, Obama was visibly irritated when the moderators asked him about Reverend Wright, his sitting on a board with a former Weather Underground (a 1960s leftist terrorist group) member, and why he does not wear an American flag-pin on his lapel.
Bristling, Obama answered that he could not be held responsible for the views of acquaintances, and that he preferred to display his patriotism though actions rather than by wearing a pin.
All are honest answers, except that none cut much ice with Joe six-pack. Unlike John McCain and Hillary Clinton, Obama is a relatively new face in American politics. He is a blank slate. Americans want to know his views on race, terrorism and patriotism, among other things.
That Obama knows he is post-racial, advocates hunting down Osama Bin Laden, and is patriotic, is not enough. People have to be convinced. And Obama has not done a good job convincing.
"These are legitimate questions," as Hillary has often said, and exploited. Republicans will attempt to paint Obama as anti-white and anti-Semite for his association with Rev. Wright, soft on terrorists because of his contact with a former member of Weather Underground, and unpatriotic because he does not wear the flag-pin.
Obama may think these are silly accusations, but they are not. If Americans can be made to believe that Obama is all of the above, he will not be the next president. Obama is especially vulnerable because his father is an African.
Presidential candidate George Herbert Walker Bush endured persistent ridicule from the press for wrapping himself up in an American flag, visiting flag-manufacturing companies, and asking the conventioneers to recite the pledge of allegiance at the Republican National Convention in 1988.
He portrayed opponent Michael Dukakis as weak on defence by publicising a photograph of Dukakis in a tank, looking like a clueless buffoon. Defying history, even after eight years of Republican presidency under Ronald Reagan, Republican Vice-President George H. W. Bush was elected president in 1988.
Many working class whites voted for George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000 because "he was the guy they would like to have a beer with." Working class whites are not ashamed to be patriotic and corny. They resented the media's portrayal of George W. Bush as "stupid" and voted for him en masse.
Working class whites, constituting 48% of the population, do not consider Barack Obama one of their own. It is not necessarily for his race. He does look elitist and aloof to them.
Instead of attempting sociological analysis of why they are "bitter" and "cling to guns and religion," Obama should accept them as they are and honour their history, tradition and lifestyle, if he is to win them over.
The good news for Obama is that Hillary will only pick up 15 or so more delegates because of her Pennsylvania victory. She will cut his popular vote lead by about 215,000, which Obama should recoup with expected victories in North Carolina and Indiana on May 6.
However, if Barack Obama wants to be the next American president he must come down from his Ivory tower, level with the Americans, and convince them in ways that the average American can understand, that he is indeed a post-racial, patriotic, and mainstream American.
Barack Obama will not be elected president on his own terms; he can only be elected president on the American people's terms.
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