Sunday, April 13, 2008

Obama's Oswald Cobblepot Moment

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. It's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.



Thus spoke Bambi, from his unity pony, no doubt. Barack Obama wants the Democratic presidential nomination. He wants it real bad and he's run a dirty campaign in his attempts to get it. He tosses around the term "change" but, never defines it. As Ralph Nader's running mate Matt Gonzalez noted, "It says something about a candidate that can stand in front of you and repeatedly say, 'I can change the culture of Washington, (D.C.)' ... without giving you an accounting of what is going on here."

bambam

Never having defined his campaign (a huge task), Bambi now lashes out at those who don't support him (and his response quoted above was greeted with laughter that Bambi grinned at -- nothing like having a good laugh at Small Town America's expense). The problem is not his vague campaign, the problem is them. That's what Bambi argues.



People who won't embrace his empty rhetoric are "bitter." They're bitter, bitter people.



Bambi was speaking to big-monied groupies in the Bay Area and it reminds us of two things. First, we're reminded of Bully Boy telling Big Money that they were his base. Second, it reminds of Oswald Cobblepot. That would be Danny De Vito's character in Batman Returns.



For those who missed that film, Oswald gets a clever marketing team and is a sudden political sensation, on the rise, with a bright future. It all comes crashing down when Batman uses the PA system to play what Oswald really thinks about the voters, to tell them what he says when they're not around.



Barack's attack on Small Town America, his ridicule of their belief systems (which, again, played for laughs to the crowd he was speaking to) offered real insight for any paying attention.
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