Someone this weekend (I can’t recall who) said that Obama lacks the experience to make a run for President at this point in his career, and perhaps he has stepped into too big a pile of doo-doo to ever make a successful run now.
I didn’t give that as much thought until I saw that four days after this whole story about his comments regarding people in small towns (specifically ones with significant job losses) “bitter” about their plights and clinging to “guns or religion” came out, he is still trying to squirm his way around it [1].
Politics is simple. If you can’t explain your way out of something in a couple of days, stop talking about it. Unless of course you want the press to continue talking about it. If it stinks, you really want to do what you can to ensure something bigger overshadows it. And talking about it has the opposite effect.
And if the press does ask about it, you say “We’ve been over this before. Next question.”.
Unfortunately, it looks like Obama is in this pretty deep already. And it really doesn’t help that his wife already paved the way with her own elitism (“I’ve never been so proud of my country…”) and that both Clinton and McCain are attacking him on it. It’s just going to be very hard to explain why it sounds like you don’t take the people of your country seriously and with respect. Of course, Hillary “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good” Clinton is not much better. But the constituency she offends tends to be smaller in numbers than the one Obama has derided.
It’s really hard to not sound elitist when you know you’re better than everyone else. The key is, making sure you ALWAYS sound like you’re just like the people you’re talking to or about… learn to talk up to people instead of down to them. Leaders that know how to act like servants (even if they don’t really care to be) will be the most successful.
Or maybe none of it matters.
Hat Tip: Reuters [1].