Monday, April 14, 2008

Keeping It Real

Obama is getting pounded in the media to the point of absurdity about his remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser last week. Clinton is attempting to squeeze as much juice out of this orange as possible. Unlike other Obama supporters I'm not gnashing my teeth about Clinton's tactics. Politics is a contact sport and the Clintons play the game hard. Republicans will play even rougher this November. Obama's campaign needs to learn how to regain the initiative when his comments are unfairly distorted.

My sense is that Obama like most politicians spoke to the sensibilities of his audience last week. And in San Francisco those sensibilities belonged to classic limousine liberals. Politics today however is very different. What is seemingly spoken in private to one group will soon by heard by all. An important lesson he should never forget.

Obama's responded well to the incoming fire so far. Clinton's inauthentic embrace of gun culture was an overreach. McCain of course with his pro-corporatist sympathies is beyond hypocritical when calling Obama an elitist. In the YouTube below Obama fires back at Clinton and McCain, while acknowledging his semantic errors and attempts to refocus the campaign dialog about people who are struggling. The media today has mostly portrayed Obama's response as a single sound bite of him uttering the word "shame" about Clinton. So, as an Obama supporter, I'll provide more than a mere sound bite. Thank goodness for YouTube.

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