I am so tired of so-called political "experts" complain about "elitism" in the Democratic party. Only the biggest Kool-Aid drinkers on the Republican side think that the Democratic party is run by "elitists".

There is a knee-jerk defensiveness that pundits engage in whenever the charge of "elitism" is launched. These pundits, who regularly assure themselves that they are not elitists, go through the usual charade of hand-wringing while they play the blame game of saying that others are surely elitists whey they are not.

It is amusing that a few weeks ago we were told that Obama's problem was that he was associating too much with the Angry Black Man and that he was too deeply enmeshed in black religion. And now we see him attacked from a completely different front: he's not too religous, he's "disrespectful" of religion and is somehow exhibiting "contempt" by pointing out the fairly obvious fact that lots of rural voters are bitter at their lot in life, esp. in recent years. So somehow he's gone from Angry Black Radical to Effete Elitist in the course of just two weeks!

Doesn't this seem just a wee bit idiotic?

Is it asking too much to constrain political pundits from writing about things that Matter At Least a Little Bit? Who will or will not stop the war in Iraq? What about the explosion of debt under the Bush regime? What about all the high crimes perpetrated under his watch? These are things people care about. Really!

It's hard for me to tell. Most pseudo-news hides itself behind the guise of being news about what other people think is news.

Really? This entire story tells us more about how the media (and many politicians) are out of touch with what really matters to American voters. Voters really don't care whether Obama thinks rural voters are "bitter" or not.

Is anybody out there seriously contending that Clinton or McCain is better attuned to the working class than Obama?

Obama defenders are anti-working class?

Quite frankly, this accusation is idiotic. Anybody who gives a damn about the future of the working class ought to do his level best to see Obama succeed as opposed to Hillary "NAFTA" Clinton and John "Keating Five" McCain.

BTW, If you're going to provide a link to give the appearance of supporting your claim, you really ought to do a bit more than link to the first of 74 pages of letters. If there is a particular letter that supports your point, cite it or don't bother to provide a link at all.

More sloppiness from Joan Walsh.

Those of us who live in the real world, and did not smooze our way to cushy writing jobs, know that the people of the working class are not perfect. Nobody is. It is a Beltway pretense to act as if acknowledging the racial and economic divisions in the US is somehow a political faux pas. Naturally, this attitude to the mere recognition of class and race divisions only serves to reinforce the status quo.

Many of us view a Clinton presidency as something that would be functionally equivalent to the previous Clinton presidency, and part and parcel of the domination of right-wing politics for the past 28 years. After all, if one compares the legislation of the 90s with that of the 80s, it seems that a weak, sell-out, right-pandering Democrat can do as much or more for right-wing causes as a popular conservative Republican. The game plan is to repeatedly sell out the base while constantly lecturing liberals about how this is the best that they can hope for.

The possibility that a more liberal voice might have a better idea what Americans actually want is very threatening to this power base - the "centrist" alliance between Republicans, money, and DLC doormats.

the myth that conservative, white voters are the key constituency in national elections? This constituency is exactly as large as it is, and it is hardly a swing constituency.

Or...let me put it another way. Gore ignored rural, conservative white voters and focused on winning a higher percentage of Latino voters, esp. in Florida. And, depending on who you believe about the recount, this was in fact a winning strategy.

The idea that "NASCAR dads" or "Focus on the Family" voters somehow control the nation is a myth created entirely by the people who expect to win this constituency in the election. This is pure intellectual laziness on the part of pollsters like Mark Penn and Karl Rove. Demographic analysis by stereotype is not particularly impressive.