Dionne: Whose Elitism Problem Now?

[RamboLiberal]

-----

And nothing more exposes the hypocrisy of financial elites riding the coattails of those who revere small-town religious values than a downturn that highlights the vast gulf in power between the two key components of the conservative coalition. Even cultural conservatives will start to notice that McCain's tax policies are geared toward the wealthy investing class and Obama's toward the paycheck crowd. Even the most ardent friends of business have begun to argue that a re-engagement with sensible regulation is essential to restoring capitalism's health.

For some time, McCain's strategists figured they could deflect attention from the big issues by turning Palin into a country-and-western celebrity and launching so many ill-founded attacks on Obama that the truth would never catch up. The McCain strategists' approach reflected a low opinion of average voters, and some Obama supporters began worrying that their opinion might be right.

But those so-called average voters understand the difference between low- and high-stakes elections. They develop a reasonably good sense of who is telling the truth and who is not. And though it sometimes takes a while -- and a shock like this week's economic news -- these voters almost always turn on politicians who manipulate cultural symbols as a way to escape the consequences of their policies.

In 1936, FDR argued that "private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise." He insisted that "freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place."

The stakes in this year's election went way up this week. The days of Paris, Britney and the exploitation of divisions around race, gender and religion are over.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502472.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

I'm with Dionne - mark this day. I think this is when the election turned with Wall Street going in the dumper and the McCain/Palin lies being exposed and ridiculed!

[yurbud]

1. I want Obama to get back the money the assholes stole.

[Booster]

2. I have been telling everyone I know to vote for themselves this

time - vote for the person who you think just might get us out of this economical mess we are in. You can actually see "Obama" form on their lips because they KNOW John McCain has no idea how to help them.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. I agree

As far as I was concerned, this was a "high-stakes election" even before any candidates announced. It is and has always been imperative that the Bush Regime be thoroughly repudiated and followed by a Democratic Administration. And I felt that as a consequence, the Democratic candidate would win.

I still think Obama would have won. He would have started pulling away about now, days after Governor Palin was exposed in a television interview as a fraud on a greater scale than Dan Quayle or George W. Bush. Obama isn't qualified? What moose shit! We all saw unqualified Friday night. Obama can answer the same questions, correctly and in his own words.

This day underscores why he should win. Republican policies have dealt the working and middle classes a raw deal for eight long years, and now even Wall Street must pay a heavy price. Four more years of Republican misrule and America will go the way of the Soviet Union.

[Waiting For Everyman]

4. k&r