Obama is moving to down-to-earth oratory for working people

[bigtree]

By Michael Powell
Published: April 1, 2008




STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania: The Speech is his finely polished sword, a transcendent weapon. Seen and heard on a thousand YouTube postings, Senator Barack Obama's speeches have made a happening of that hoariest of campaign forms, the stump speech.

But Obama sheaths that sword more often now. He is grounding his lofty rhetoric in the more prosaic language of white-working-class discontent, adjusting it to the less welcoming terrain of Pennsylvania. His preferred communication now is the town-hall-style meeting.

So in Johnstown, a small, economically depressed city tucked in a valley hard by the Little Conemaugh River, Obama on Saturday spoke to the gritty reality of a city that ranks dead last on the Census Bureau's list of places likely to attract American workers. His traveling companion, Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, introduced the candidate as an "underdog fighter for an underdog state."

Obama, a quicksilver political student, picked up that cue. He often mentions his background as a community organizer but in passing, a parenthetical. Not this time. "I got into public service as an organizer," Obama told these 1,200 mostly white Pennsylvanians in a local high school gymnasium. "There were a group of churches, mostly Catholic parishes, and they hired me for $12,000 plus car fare."

That detail drew knowing chuckles in a town where the median income hovers at just over $20,000. "So I got myself believing that the most important thing is not to be an elected official but to hold them accountable."

Then, echoing Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's focus on bread-and-butter concerns, Obama went on to talk about the price of gas and to offer the precise amount of his health care premium and to explain exactly what he would do about the foreclosure rate and Big Oil and Big Energy and how he would stop companies from moving to China.

Obama's effort to master a plain-spoken and blunt language that extends back centuries in Pennsylvania is accompanied by no small stakes. Voters here, as in neighboring Ohio, where Obama lost the white and aging blue-collar vote, tend to elect politicians whose language rarely soars and whose policy prescriptions come studded with detail.

"The problem with talking about hope all the time is that these are not hopeful lands; Obama is talking change to people who equate change with life getting worse," said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic Party consultant who has studied the political culture of these working-class states with a Talmudic intensity.



article: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/01/america/01obama.php

[angie_love]

1. good, it'll work

[bigtree]

5. It can't hurt

. . . for our party to be represented so well in these working class towns

[Coexist]

24. absolutely - great post.

[anonymous171]

2. This is good. Thanks for the post Bigtree!

:toast:

[bigtree]

3. I think we need this town hall format to bring the focus back to the issues and concerns

which are closest to the voters. I'd like to see more of these from the Senator.

[anonymous171]

4. I agree. Townhalls educate voters AND allow them to get to know the candidates.

[slinkerwink]

8. A lot of his town hall meetings have been like this

[blm]

17. I've always believed that spirited townhalls ARE exactly what separates the real answers

from the rehearsed fare.

[bigtree]

6. kick for my -O- buds

:kick:

[bigtree]

7. unity boot

:kick:

[slinkerwink]

9. thank you!

[bigtree]

10. -O- kick

:kick:

[GarbagemanLB]

11. Thank you for being fair to both candidates. I enjoyed your Richardson endorsement thread.

[bigtree]

12. It's not the motts,

but I try to use one post out of the three for a crossover thread.

You are very welcome, and, it is, of course, my pleasure to present Barack Obama in a less than critical or favorable light.

[ekwhite]

13. K&R!

That was a really nice post, bigtree. My hat is off to you. :toast:

[bigtree]

14. I like the way states like Pa. force these candidates to listen to voter's concerns

up close and personal.

[panAmerican]

15. This is the first time I heard him mention his mom's cancer

and her concern about getting coverage at a new job, in her 50s, with a pre-existing condition. I'd like to hear personal stories like this from his campaign to show that he can relate to Main Street, and not just those in the Ivy tower.

[Shakespeare]

16. Thanks for posting this, bigtree. n/t

[Willo]

18. Thx for posting this Bigtree...there is a video on MSNBC

next to that same article. His interview with Ann Curry.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23890494/

[MethuenProgressive]

19. You can't get more down to earth than "Cousin Pookie and Ray-Ray"...

:rofl:

[BigDDem]

20. should we expect to hear

"y'all been bamboozled?"

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. Great to see Barak responding to people who have the nous to concern

themselves with the nitty-gritty. I expect they were John Edward's supporters.

These were hilarious comments in a wry sort of way:

"The problem with talking about hope all the time is that these are not hopeful lands; Obama is talking change to people who equate change with life getting worse," said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic Party consultant who has studied the political culture of these working-class states with a Talmudic intensity."

However, maybe they did attract a lot of people who were more comfortably off, and set the ball rolling, under the guidance of a benign Providence. Whether inspirational or reminiscent of a cult, the outcome of Barak's earlier, rather grandiloquent rhetoric seems to have initiated what looks like becoming an awesome historical development.

[bigtree]

23. I agree that, the ability to communicate effectively is important

. . . to advancing our concerns into action or law.

[backscatter712]

22. Sometimes, it helps to take the Waco Kid's advice:

"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."

:evilgrin: