Not One Of Us

From Newsweek:

Only in America

Barack Obama is a Niebuhr-reading ESPN watcher. The origins of his troubles with the 'other' tag.

Evan Thomas, Holly Bailey and Richard Wolffe
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Following Hillary Clinton's lead, the McCain team sees an opportunity to paint Obama as an out-of-touch elitist, a Harvard toff who nibbles daintily at designer salads while the working man, worried about layoffs at the plant, belts another shot. Though the McCain advisers are divided about who would make the more beatable candidate in November, they see a chance to peel off Reagan Democrats—older working-class voters—in key swing states of the rust belt if Obama is the Democratic nominee. While McCain himself is publicly neutral on which Democrat he would prefer to oppose, in recent weeks he has noticeably gone easier on Clinton than Obama, perhaps out of hopes of winning over some of her working-class base.

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But in Obama's failure to lock up the nomination, there may be something more disturbing going on as well.

Americans do not like to talk about class, and they want to believe racism is a thing of the past. Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, paragons of the people, were decidedly upper class in background, style and habit, and no one seemed to mind (except some other members of the upper class, who regarded the Roosevelts as "traitors" for wanting to tax and regulate the rich). JFK and Ronald Reagan were princely in their own ways (of Camelot and Hollywood) and yet could touch the hearts of common men and women.
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The most successful presidents have always been open and hopeful, sunny and optimistic about the promise of American equality and opportunity. But there has long been a dark side to democratic politics, a willingness to play on prejudice, to get men and women to vote their fears and not their hopes. Those prejudices fade and seem to die down, but they never quite go away. They remain embers for cunning political operatives to fan into flames.

An exit poll of Pennsylvania voters included a chilling number that makes one wonder if Americans, or at least some groups in some parts of America, are ready to elect a black president. In the poll, 12 percent of whites said that race was a factor in deciding their votes. …In the NEWSWEEK Poll, more than half the voters said they think "most" (12 percent) or "some" (41 percent) of the voters will "have reservations about voting for a black candidate that they are not willing to express." In close elections, decided on the margins, it is discouraging to think that a small minority of racists could make the difference.

What is just weird is this: how can it be that a black man running for president is accused of being too elitist? For the first century of the nation's existence, blacks were kept in chains. For the next century, they were sent to the back of the bus and kept away from whites-only lunch counters and restrooms throughout the South—much less allowed to join the white elite in their schools and clubs and prestigious institutions. Then, starting in the 1960s, American society began to make a concerted effort to open up those doors. Barack Obama is not so much the beneficiary of that effort as the proof that blacks can make it on their own, if given the chance. He was, despite a modest upbringing, elected editor of the Harvard Law Review, a position at the very tip of the meritocratic ziggurat.

Yet to pockets of America, he still seems to be the "other." He seems a little strange, exotic; those cracked e-mails whispering about his middle name (Hussein) and declaring, fictitiously, that he is a Muslim who insisted on being sworn into office on the Qur'an rather than the Bible, keep buzzing around the Internet. To some, his manner is haughty; he is a bit of an egghead, one of those pointy-headed intellectuals whom George W. Bush liked to ridicule as a Deke brother at Yale and even later as president of the United States (and, long before him, demagogues like the anti-Semitic right-wing radio priest of the 1940s, Father Charles Coughlin; Red-baiter Sen. Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, and race-baiter Gov. George Wallace of Alabama).

Demagoguing, even in the subtle ways enabled by new media, can have an impact over time. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, 13 percent reported that Obama is Muslim. NEWSWEEK reporters on the campaign trail could hear the wariness, even fearfulness, of voters as they spoke about Obama.
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Please understand, it’s Not a Racial Thing.

It’s not, not, not. We double-Blue-Dog-swear it's not.

It’s just that every Obama supporter is completely delusional.

So full of hate.

It’s like they’re so hypnotized or deranged they can’t even see how dangerous and unelectable their candidate is.

Take for example all this talk about “hope” this and “hope” that. We have real problems in this county! We’re at war for goodness sakes, and our economy is in real trouble, and we do not need some exotic Ivy-league elitist snob

who doesn’t understand our problems running our country.

We just need someone

more like us.

And these young people he’s bringing in?

Just kids, really.

No idea how the real world works, and what can you say except to agree with Bill Clinton that it's easy to be bamboozled by a slick operator with a lot of fine words when you are young and foolish.

No, we really need someone

a little more like us.

And he comes out of “Chicago”, with all of that scary, big city machine politics they have there.

So you know that means he was corrupt, even if we can't come up with some fancy lawyer "proof".

You just know that while he claims he was (allegedly) a "community organizer", he was probably really one of those back-room, city fixer pols.

Instead of someone

more like us.

Plus we hear he has some kinda shady dealings with the mob maybe. Some Arab named “Rezko”. We don’t know all the details, but there are rumors, and "Where There's Smoke, There's Fire" we say.

Like we said, it’s not a racial thing.

It’s just that he is obviously con artist with a lot of shady friends, and we don’t need that in the White House.

We need someone

more like us.

And can you believe that church he goes to?

All of those bizarre rituals? And the weird music they play? The language they use? And that they obviously hated America so much they felt they had to go set up their own, separate church?

It just chills the blood to think that someone who follows those crazy teachings would be in charge of our country!

Sure his followers says that one, 30-second snip taken out of context and from a 40-year-ministry is not a fair way to judge, but as we have already proven with iron logic, they are all obviously delusional.

And we say, why take that chance?

And, sure, he says his pastor won’t be giving him Secret Orders – maybe even Secret Foreign Orders! -- but you just never know with those people and their alien religion.

Like we said, it’s not a racial thing at all, so quit saying that has anything to do with anything!

If only he wasn’t some fringe church whacko.

Sigh.

If only he was

more like us.

And he consorts with radicals. 60s radicals. Did you know that?

And his resume is too thin.

And don’t even get us started on the weird, highfalutin way he talks.

So, just to be crystal clear, this has nothing to do with the color of his skin.

No, no, no!

It is simply that this Party -- especially during a time of crisis -- would never, ever embrace some hope-peddler who reeks of

Ivy-league elitism, suspect religion and inexperience.

So quit harping on the racial thing.

It's obviously not a racial thing.

It's obvious that the millions of people who voted for him are all insane, and that Barack Obama is simply

not one of us.