hypocritexposer
Well-known member
I remember Alice saying that it wouldn't be the birth certificate issue that would bring down obama. Maybe not, but it was the first issue that he could have started with when trying to build trust with the American people.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/zito/s_698963.html#
Price for not listening
By Salena Zito
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, September 12, 2010
BIG BEAVER
Voters in river towns like this one, from the Mid-Atlantic to the Midwest and Deep South, are frustrated with Washington.
Most are working-class Democrats and independents who placed their trust in Democrats in the past two election cycles.
Yet with all of its poll numbers and focus groups, Washington's ruling class still does not understand Main Street. In fact, it wants to know what is wrong with Americans.
President Barack Obama, his advisers, congressional leaders and even many elite Beltway pundits believe voter anger among Republicans alone may cause Democrats to lose November's midterm election.
They could not be more wrong.
Democrats are losing the confidence of Main Street Democrat and independent voters because they did not listen. It really is that simple.
Yet instead of owning up to Democrats' shortcomings, Gov. Ed Rendell blames a GOP takeover by "wackos" and "fruit loops" -- and the president, in a major economic-policy speech, says something very unpresidential about being referred to as a "dog."
"Obama's problem, as I see it, is partly a matter of atmospherics," says
Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology and journalism at Columbia University. "He has to get out among working-class voters and display his popular touch."
Things are very bad for working-class and middle-class voters, Gitlin says, given the economic collapse on top of a long-rusting manufacturing economy. "It seems that the White House is, belatedly, trying to address these people, as in Obama's Cleveland speech. ... Obviously, it's going to be a rough haul."
Says Jeff Brauer, Keystone College history professor: "Obama and the Democrats basically mistook their 2008 electoral victory, which was more of a vote against George W. Bush than for Democrats, as the necessary connection with the everyday American to enact their agenda."
Because of that, they didn't feel the need to earn Americans' trust before making bold policy decisions, which is why their leadership is in political trouble.
Brauer says this is compounded by Obama's aloofness.
"Good political leaders are able to emotionally connect to their constituents. Ronald Reagan was masterful at comforting citizens, even not being afraid to shed tears, as during the Challenger disaster."
Bill Clinton's ability to listen intently, making anyone he spoke with feel as if he or she were the only other person in the world at that moment, rendered his "I feel your pain" style believable.
Obama's cool, laid-back, intellectual approach to issues and crises has hindered true connectivity with average Americans. Moreover, his dry, sarcastic humor comes across to many as elitist.
Obama and Democrats' major policy disconnect with everyday Americans is about the growing federal deficit and national debt.
"This is their fundamental misreading of the electorate," Brauer says.
Main Street Americans have been forced for several years to tighten their belts, make sacrifices and act responsibly. Unemployment remains intolerably high; those with jobs have seen their real incomes go down. Personal expenses have risen while home values have plummeted.
"So what they expect is their government to also tighten its belt, make sacrifices and act responsibly during these tough economic times," says Brauer. "They don't see it as a time to enact what they perceive to be big-government programs, such as health-care reform, that they believe will further run up deficits and the national debt."
Obama's positions -- whether on government health care, more stimulus funding or cap-and-trade energy policies -- may line up with the liberal side of his party and many Washington elites but don't line up with most Americans. In a Rasmussen Report poll last month, 67 percent of the political class said America is on the right track while 84 percent of mainstream Americans disagreed.
Main Street Americans, as Clinton once said, "work hard and play by the rules." They tend to work 50 weeks each year, travel by car for vacation, care for elderly parents, volunteer in their communities and churches, and try to save enough money to help their children have a better life.
They are the America that is coming out to vote this fall.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/zito/s_698963.html#