Boris forwarded to me this passage from The Audacity of Hope which was noted by Jim Geraghty:
Increasingly, I [Obama] found myself spending time with people of means – law firm partners and investment bankers, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists. As a rule, they were smart,interesting people, knowledgeable about public policy, liberal in their politics, expecting nothing more than a hearing of their opinions in exchange for checks. But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class; the top 1 percent or so of the income scale that can afford to write a $2,000 check to a political candidate. They believed in the free market and an educational meritocracy; they found it hard to imagine that there might be any social ill that could not be cured with a high SAT score. No financial difficulty that could not be amended with this course here on forex or that course there on stock investment strategy. They had no patience with protectionism, found unions troublesome, and were not particularly sympathetic to those whose lives were upended by movements of global capital. Most were adamantly prochoice and were vaguely suspicious of deep religious sentiment…
I know that as a consequence of my fund-raising I became more like the wealthy donors I met, in the very particular sense that I spent more and more of my time above the fray, outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality, and frequent hardship of the other 99 percent of the population – that is, the people I’d entered public life to serve.
Geraghty follows up with:
Amen, senator! I think the donors Obama describes are a bunch of arrogant snobs. But what does that make Obama, who listens to them offer their opinion and concludes they have a hard time imaging “that there might be any social ill that could not be cured with a high SAT score”?
With Obama, it seems a $2,000 donation will get you his ear, but not his respect.
I don’t quite agree with Geraghty here: It seems like he’s putting Obama in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. If Obama says he agrees with his donors, he’s a liberal elitist. If he disagrees with them, then he’s being disrespectful to these innocent donors.
I think Geraghty would be on stronger ground to just take Obama at his word that he “became more like the wealthy donors I met, in the very particular sense that I spent more and more of my time above the fray . . .” and make the point that this is an inherent contradiction within liberal politics, that there are templates for failure but not template for success (i.e., “selling out”). Or maybe not; I’m not familiar enough with Geraghty to really know where he’s coming from.
Perceptions of red and blue voters
More to the point, as Boris notes, “Obama’s quote directly relates to the themes of our Red State, Blue State book: the contradiction between economic and social views at the very top, the blue state lens he sees rich people through, etc. etc.” To spell this out in a bit more detail: in rich, Democratic-leaning states such as Illinois, upper-income voters tend to be more economically conservative but more socially liberal than lower-income voters. (In poor, Republican-leaning states, upper-income voters are much more economically conservative than lower-income voters but about the same, on average, on social issues.) So Obama was observing a tension that’s particularly relevant in rich, “blue” states.
Obama makes it seem 99% of US citizens live in poverty.
I don't know, maybe we should all emigrate to Mexico…
Union members are not in the bottom quintile, even, and their interests can be as narrow as that of the 1% elite.
The poor? Nobody listens to them, not even Obama.
Not 99% perhaps, but there are a lot more people at the bottom than there are at the top. This chart of 2005 US household income distribution is enlightening.
"The Arrogance of Hope" is a pretty good synopsis for at least one of the right's current talking points on Obama. Rove's comment: "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by," (talk about projection) is part of the same meme.
We have had quite a bit of that kind of politics, i.e., the politics of hyper-polarization, over the past few years. You might want to tread a bit more carefully than "don't quite agree." That discourse is hard ball.
Obama's musing is just in a sense conventional; that it is damn hard to understand the plight of those who didn't stroll down the leafy sidewalk to a high SAT score, who benefited from rather than suffered economic displacement, and draw their faith from other wells. But it is an important one.
Frank, I have to disagree. I believe that Obama does listen to the poor. He himself, has had many struggles, he has given unrelenting support to the poor communities in Chicago, and it is where his greatest support comes from.
I'm not sure why this merits discussion on this blog, but whatever…the thing I find striking is Geraghty's comment about these donors. Read the description: "But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class; the top 1 percent or so of the income scale that can afford to write a $2,000 check to a political candidate. They believed in the free market and an educational meritocracy; they found it hard to imagine that there might be any social ill that could not be cured with a high SAT score. They had no patience with protectionism, found unions troublesome, and were not particularly sympathetic to those whose lives were upended by movements of global capital. "
That description fits wealthy Republicans at least as well as it fits wealthy Democrats. Only the following, final line that Geraghty quotes — "adamantly prochoice and were vaguely suspicious of deep religious sentiment" — might, and I only say might, be less representative of wealthy Republicans.
So it's funny-peculiar that Geraghty expresses such distaste for these people.
I guess I'll mention that I'm also baffled by Frank's comment thta "Obama makes it seem 99% of US citizens live in poverty." I don't see anything in the quoted passage that seems remotely like that. But I haven't read Obama's book, maybe Frank is responding to something else that Obama says.
Phil,
Regarding your first two paragraphs: Wealthy Republicans are indeed more likely to go to church and I think more likely to oppose abortion; also, they probably don't agree with the statement that "there might be any social ill that could not be cured with a high SAT score." But, otherwise, yeah, this seems like a description of wealthy Republicans.
The relevance to the blog is explained in the final paragraph of the blog entry: the quote relates to the pattern that political differences between rich and poor are different in red states than in blue states.
We need better schools to tackle poverty yet it is teacher unions – mainly bleeding heart democrats – who stand in the way of reform.
I am bored with the stereotype of the rich country club republican exploiting the laboring masses.