Leftist Econ Erode Rightist Social Values?

"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... And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And 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."

Barack Obama, 6 APR, San Francisco

Eight days from the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary, potentially Mrs. Clinton's last if she fails to win by more than ten points, this comment seems to have aptly demonstrated why Senator Obama's candidacy worries some Democrats.

Yet how bad is this statement, really? Kausfiles examines...

Clearly, the last sentence is the major problem, even though I don't think the word "bitter" is as big of a problem as the clause that follows.

Essentially, Senator Obama's last point well encapsulates what most on the left have believed since Ronald Reagan's epochal victory in 1980: Americans who would otherwise support their economic policies do not vote for them because they are persuaded by the right of a perceived arrogant, effete, elitism inherent within the Democratic Party.

Snobbery looks much worse when choose to talk about someone behind their back. I don't believe Mr. Obama's words were meant for anyone outside that ritzy Northern California "Billionaires Row," yet a liberal blog decided to ensure that every last Pennsylvanian with an internet connection could learn about them.

His comment about the permanently lost jobs is a rare public admission of a truth: the American Midwest is largely dying. In one or two more generations, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, once mighty bastions of economic strength, will drift toward irrevelance. Illinois, due to Chicago's vitality, will last longer, but it too continues to lose electoral votes. These jobs did not return even during the mid-to-late-1990s boom because of globalization, a friend to many, but a foe to those in positions dependent on protectionism.

Not even the most pandering of politicians, such as our current president, with his naked grab for twenty-two electoral votes in the form of the 2002 steel tariffs (later deemed illegal), can return the Midwest to its late-1940s-mid-1960s glory days. The rapid rise of China and India only exacerbates the problem. Tales about Uniontown or Allentown used to be are just tales from the past, as more and more companies close up shop, more and more people move away. No question, people are frustrated, and only a handful of politicians will tell them that the jobs are not coming back, at least not in their old form, but do people really express their "bitterness" by "clinging" to the right-wing social platform?

I can understand anti-trade, on the other hand, hasn't Senator Obama relentlessly pandered on the need to re-negotiate NAFTA, and hasn't he helped to block the US-COL trade deal? If you follow the likely Democratic nominee's thought to its logical conclusion he is saying that we would not have Second Amendment quarrels, abortion arguments, religious zealotry, or anti-immigrant views if people still had their jobs and made as much money relative to inflation as they did in 1975?

On the one hand, this is impossible to disprove. On the other, it once again makes the argument that economic troubles lead to hardened social views. What Pennsylvania and its sister states have lost is an ability to recreate themselves, the way Florida now does every five years, and that is because they have failed to attract new investment in part because people are not moving there anymore. I think that Senator Obama is trying to nudge them to the new reality of this century, but it won't be easy, particularly with the Clintons urging them to "cling" to their past... and in more ways than one.