3.20.2008

VDH on Obama

Mr. Victor Davis Hanson, whose use of language and intellectual capacity remind me strongly of the late great William F. Buckley, explains Obama's larger problem:

The problem is instead the environment that he heretofore has navigated in — prep school, the Ivy League, the regional identity politics of Chicago, or Illinois liberalism — is hardly representative of his own country. So what he can say among sympathizers and friends will not be excused or contextualized by average others who don't know him and won't give him the latitude he is accustomed to and apparently has counted on.
The problem is similar to one that plagued the elder Bush's re-election campaign, when he was apparently fascinated by a supermarket bar-code scanner, something which the public was by that time very familiar with. The problem is that Bush, and now Obama, are shown to be largely out of touch with everyday Americans.

Obama probably thought that his pretty little speech, which would have--and indeed did--impress his friends in the media and rank-and-file lefties would also impress Joe Average, who didn't go to Harvard, has never lived overseas, and drives a pick-up to work... drives it himself, of course, because he doesn't have a chauffeur.

Obama thought wrong. And therein lies his problem.