What we know about Obama

Ken Concannon
Published: April 17, 2008

I don’t agree with Hillary Clinton often. Actually, this is probably the first time. 

But I think she’s got it absolutely right when she says that Barack Obama is an elitist. He is.  Of course, so is she. But Hillary’s elitism is a concept long established. So it’s not news. Obama’s elitism, on the other hand, is something we only suspected — until April 6, when Obama confided with the rich folk at a fund raiser on Billionaire’s Row in San Francisco his thoughts about small-town America:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, a lot of them — like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. 

And they’ve gone through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, and they cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Explaining to rich people why people who aren’t rich “cling to guns, or religion,” equating religious attitudes with “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them,” and attributing religious beliefs to economic bitterness is what one would expect a liberal elitist to say to other elitists. But you don’t expect the elitist politician to say that publicly, while being videotaped. The fact that Barack Obama said what he said while on camera tells us two things about him. First, he’s an elitist. 

Second, he’s not all that bright.  With primaries still looming in states where small town American values (religion, Second Amendment rights, etc.) predominate (Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina) the public expression of attitudes hostile to the mores of the local electorate is usually considered to be political stupidity.

Having committed what the pundits like to call a gaffe, the not-so-bright elitist has fallen prey to a television attack ad approved by Hillary Clinton but featuring citizens from Pennsylvania’s Lehigh valley — home of Allentown, Easton, Bethlehem and really small towns like Neffs, Palmerton, and Schnecksville (where my wife’s grandparents owned a small farm). In the advertisement, the Pennsylvanians express considerable umbrage at Obama’s elitist characterization of their religious and political beliefs as a consequence of economic bitterness.  Like most people I know, they attribute their religious beliefs and attitudes to a variety of things that have nothing to do with economics.

When Barack Obama first announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for president almost two years ago, the typical response to his announcement was “Who?” Nobody knew who he was. Even some members of the Senate, where he was serving his first term, didn’t know him. Some senators in his own party referred to him as Osama Obama, not knowing him any better.

After a few television interviews and debates, the persona of a well-spoken, charismatic black man began to emerge. He came across, at first, as a breath of fresh air, an alternative to the “business as usual” politicians who were also seeking the Democratic nomination. Billing himself as an apostle of change, he has succeeded in eliminating all but one candidate for the Democratic nomination, the early odds-on favorite Hillary Clinton, who trails his delegate count by a relative handful of delegates.

But with political success comes exposure. We now know that Obama has the most liberal voting record in the Senate. We know that his idea of change will not only dramatically increase our taxes but move us closer to the socialist nanny state so many of us deplore.

We know that his spiritual mentor for the past twenty years, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, is a racist who, from his public statements, apparently hates the
United States. We know that his attempts to convince the public that he was unaware of the reverend’s views lack credibility.

And now we know that Barack Obama is a liberal elitist.

Ken Concannon is a resident of Prince William County. E-mail him at .