~by Lisaed
I find myself wondering lately what it must be like to be one of those all powerful “persuadable” voters. I’m charming. I’m conservative. I’m not persuadable. While I may not be an ardent supporter of John McCain I am an ardent supporter of all those wanting to keep Barack Obama out of the White House. In other words, I’m not as passionate about putting a republican in the White House this time round as I am about keeping the likely democratic nominee out.
It’s no surprise that I say to you I was never one of those republicans who were o.k. with the prospect of a President Obama. I was never going to be one of those Obamicans Barack likes to think will flock to him come November. In short, I never liked Barack Obama. I didn’t like him before we heard the “God Damn America” rantings from the Reverend Wright. I didn’t like him before his elitist comments about small town Americans. But what about those persuadable voters? Are they like me at all? Do they find they like Barack Obama less and less the more they learn about this this relatively unknown candidate for President? I hope so because one thing on which we can all agree is it’s those persuadable voters - those who have not yet made up their minds - some of them democrats, some of them republicans, most of them independents who will determine the next leader of the free world.
I’d like to be inside the mind of a persuadable voter. Do they ever cringe like I do when they watch Barack Obama? Going back about eight long weeks ago as I watched what was still the “walk on water” pre-Reverend Wright version of Barack Obama speaking to emotionally charged enormous crowds complete with crying and fainting women he didn’t inspire within me hope. No it was something much different that I felt. I felt angry. I was angry that democratic primary voters were so enamored with this guy whose gift for oratory blinded them to the fact they were all too willing to place a just barely U.S. Senator basically a back bencher from the Illinois State Senate in the White House. The more cool the more calm the more collected Barack Obama was in front of these crowds of thousands the more uncomfortable I became watching this man preach from his pulpit to the masses. The Obama Campaign must have sensed my discomfort cause by Texas they were going for smaller venues where they could limit crowd sizes to just a couple thousand.
Did persuadable voters laugh (not with him but at him) like I did when I heard that score? A 37.….a 37? Real men can bowl and if they can’t they fake it. Even I can shoot better than a 37 and I count as one of my most embarrassing moments an incident in a bowling alley circa 1988. Did persuadable voters think Obama looked silly dancing alongside Ellen Degeneres on her show? So much for stereotypes. The point of all this is Obama is far less comfortable when forced to step down from his pulpit and walk amongst the little people. His body language alone confirms this as it did on his recent appearance on “The View” where he sat fidgeting on the couch like a school child anxious for recess. If Obama can’t sit still next to Joy Behar what will he do when sitting alongside Ahmadinejad in one of those without conditions meetings he wants to have with leaders of rogue nations?
Were persuadable voters shocked and appalled last Friday as I was when I heard those shameful comments Barack Obama made about small town Americans?
“But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of 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 they fell 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, 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.”
Were persuadable voters disappointed with the great orator who instead of apologizing tried to explain away his ill conceived remarks by blaming the government for the bitterness he believes small town Americans feel…..the bitterness Obama believes is the impetus behind their faith in God and their support for second amendment rights as well as their disdain for things like illegal immigration. Did those persuadable voters buy his promise that a vote for him would help alleviate that bitterness because this new messiah could solve all their problems with big government?
“”And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream.”
I know I’m a proud republican who believes strongly in the politics of personal responsibility, but were persuadable voters swallowing Obama’s kool-aid that it is from the hand of the government and the government alone that Americans can live the American dream? My goodness his remarks smacked of socialism.
Lastly I wonder do persuadable voters believe that Barack Obama shares their values? I’m not so sure because since the Reverend Wright scandal I’ve seen Obama views the world too often through the lens of color - he sees the grievances of black people and the bitterness of lower class white people. And so I’m left to wonder if his untraditional life story allows him to see and even understand the shared values of all Americans. After I heard his Philadelphia speech on race I looked at my husband and said I think I know now what it must have felt like to live in 1964 America. That speech did not inspire within me hope but once again anger because I believed in that speech Obama focused too much on where this country still has work to do and not enough on the very real progress that has indeed been made in race relations in America.
Obama likes to tell us about the audacity of hope and yet so often when I listen to him I see him pointing to our shortcomings, to our anger, to our bitterness, to our despair. Obama presents himself as the change candidate who inspires hope among the masses but more and more lately I’m feeling that Obama’s politics of hope are nothing but a farce because what Obama is truly preaching is nothing short of the politics of a liberal elitist with socialist tendencies. Did he think we wouldn’t catch on because he is black? We’re an equal opportunity country and I guess the lesson learned is that black people in America can aspire to be snobby liberals too and I wonder now if armed with this new knowledge about Barack Obama if persuadable voters are really so persuadable after all.
