More "Obama does not connect" meme from the Post

[Mass]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/02/AR2010020202644.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010020204037

Despite his roots, Obama struggles to show he's connected to middle class

Now, I like the title. Could it be because he is not trying to be phony like Bush that our elite media thinks he does not connect. And who cares what the reporter saw. Polls say he connects well.

His visit to Nashua was his fourth domestic trip in less than two weeks, and it included a stop at a small business and a question-and-answer session in a high school gymnasium. He took off his jacket during his speech, rolled up his sleeves and put one hand in his pocket. He dropped his g's and departed from scripted remarks to make jokes about "leakin' " roofs and "buyin' new curtains."

Ah, these blue-collar workers. This comment reminds me of the "green tea" comment in a Candy Crowley's speech a few years ago. Our big media reporters have an elitist view of them and cannot get rid of it.

But during his campaign for the presidency, Obama bungled some of his early attempts to connect with blue-collar workers, complaining about the price of arugula at Whole Foods and visiting a bowling alley only to roll an embarrassing score of 37. Some political rivals continue to disparage him as an elitist. Even his aides have sometimes worried that his intellect can be mistaken for condescension and that his composure can seem like detachment.

And now, the best of the article. Bush and Clinton are so great and Obama has learned from them during a Haiti speech. Bush, the phony folksy guy who cut wood in his ranch.

Those shortcomings were evident last month when Obama invited the previous two presidents to join him at the White House for a news conference about the U.S. relief effort in Haiti. George W. Bush was simple and frank: "Just send us your cash," he said. Bill Clinton spoke without notes and verged on tears as he recalled his personal connection to the devastated country: "I have no words to say what I feel," he said. "I had meals with people who are dead." Obama, meanwhile, spoke from prepared notes, looking all business, glancing to his left and to his right to establish eye contact while standing with perfect posture behind the lectern.

In the two weeks since, Obama appears to have learned from his predecessors' trademark strengths. He has traveled to Ohio, Baltimore, Florida and New Hampshire, each time emphasizing how much he enjoys leaving the strictures of the White House and the divisiveness of Washington. Like Clinton, he has told stories about his own struggles, recalling the 15 years he spent paying off student loans and the "family emergency" that forced him to cash out his 401(k). Like Bush, he has favored simple language and relatable analogies.

You can always count on the WaPo to be out of touch.

[Pirate Smile]

1. Did you see this: "Is Obama Disconnected From The Middle Class?"

Is Obama Disconnected From The Middle Class?

That’s the claim made in today’s Washington Post, in an article about Obama’s visit to New Hampshire yesterday called: “Despite his roots, Obama struggles to show he’s connected to middle class.” The crux:

His first year in office was defined in part by a paradox. He is a rare president who comes from the middle class, yet people still perceive him as disconnected from it. As he arrived in Nashua, nearly two-thirds of Americans believed that his economic policies had hurt the country or made no difference at all; almost half thought he did not understand their problems.

Do “almost half” think Obama doesn’t understand their problems? Yes, but according to the latest Washington Post poll, far more than half think he does understand them:

Please tell me whether the following statement applies to Obama, or not? He understands the problems of people like you:

Yes 57%
No 42%
No opinion 2%

So technically it’s accurate to say “people” perceive him as disconnected, but it’s perhaps more accurate to say far more people don’t percieve him this way.

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/political-media/is-obama-disconnected-from-the-middle-class/

[CynicalObserver]

8. unless I am missing the obvious

"Obama, meanwhile, spoke from prepared notes, looking all business, glancing to his left and to his right to establish eye contact while standing with perfect posture behind the lectern."

is his standard speech method of looking at his teleprompter. Was he not using one at this event?

I know folks get sensitive on this topic, but it is a fact that he looks down/forward (at his podium normally), then to the prompter on the right, then down/forward, then prompter on the left, then down/forward, etc., on nearly every single prepared speech he makes. Either this was an unusual exception, or the prompters were there and the author of this piece choose to willfully ignore this.

[FrenchieCat]

9. Is this the best that you can do? Because I want to be certain certain that he scratched

his ass with the correct hand. Do did he? :shrug:

[Skittles]

2. LOL - (during Haiti speech with bush and Clinton): "Obama was all business"

because he was ON THE JOB - he is the fucking PRESIDENT

[Mass]

3. Digby has more on this

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

The Phony Human

by digby

The Washington Post says that Obama is having trouble relating to middle class worries and concerns because he's an elitist who travels in a helicopter and his own airplane. (I hear he has his own private chef too!)

And now he is affecting a fake regular guy accent to fool people into believing that he is one of them, taking cues from his (respectively) frank and sensitive predecessors, Bush and Clinton. But it probably won't work. There's just something (presumptuous?) about him:
It is a tough sell for any president who lives inside what Obama refers to as "the bubble," but tougher still for Obama. His first year in office was defined in part by a paradox. He is a rare president who comes from the middle class, yet people still perceive him as disconnected from it. As he arrived in Nashua, nearly two-thirds of Americans believed that his economic policies had hurt the country or made no difference at all; almost half thought he did not understand their problems.

There's just something different about him, something that makes the Washington Post believe he isn't like all those Real Americans he's trying to woo. I wonder what it is?

This narrative has been out there since the campaign as I'm sure you recall, but it's lately resurfaced. Maureen Dowd's demented scribblings gave it the imprimatur of village conventional wisdom. But the polls don't bear this out at all:

“Warm and friendly”: 77%
“Cares about people like me”: 64%


Of course, it must be noted that Sally Quinn definitely feels that Obama is anything but warm and friendly and doesn't care nearly enough about people like her. If he wants to change this narrative it's going to take some concerted ring kissing of the Real Americans who live in the Village. When it comes to CW, they're the only ones who count.

[ProSense]

4. "Tell us again, Washington Post, just who's out of touch?"

Great points. But there's also this overlooked stupid assertion in the passage Sargent quotes:

He is a rare president who comes from the middle class, yet people still perceive him as disconnected from it.

So it's rare that a president comes from the middle class? Like Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman? Sure, by the time they took office, some of these guys had more disposable income than your average middle-class American, but all of them were born into the working or middle class. Even Carter, whose father was a successful local businessman in Plains, still had a mother who worked as a nurse. Those "rare" presidents sure have a lot of company in the rarity department. In fact, of all presidents since Roosevelt, only JFK--and the Bushes--came from inherited wealth.

And there's the rub. Apparently the standard generic president to whom all will be compared from here on out is some member of the Bush dynasty. Lord, help us all.

Tell us again, Washington Post, just who's out of touch?

link

[LeftyAndProud60]

5. This is a coded article about Obama relating to white people. NT

[Cali_Democrat]

6. Bingo. n/t

[whathehell]

7. They're desperate.