Who’s Bitter Now? (Social Issues are the Opiate of the Elites not Small Town America)

New York Times ^ | 17 April 2007 | LARRY M. BARTELS

[shrinkermd]

Last week in Terre Haute, Ind., Mr. Obama explained that the people he had in mind “don’t vote on economic issues, because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them.” He added: “So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington.”

This is a remarkably detailed and vivid account of the political sociology of the American electorate. What is even more remarkable is that it is wrong on virtually every count.

Small-town people of modest means and limited education are not fixated on cultural issues. Rather, it is affluent, college-educated people living in cities and suburbs who are most exercised by guns and religion. In contemporary American politics, social issues are the opiate of the elites.

...Do small-town, working-class voters cast ballots on the basis of social issues? Yes, but less than other voters do. Among these voters, those who are anti-abortion were only 6 percentage points more likely than those who favor abortion rights to vote for President Bush in 2004. The corresponding difference for the rest of the electorate was 27 points, and for cosmopolitan voters it was a remarkable 58 points. Similarly, the votes cast by the cosmopolitan crowd in 2004 were much more likely to reflect voters’ positions on gun control and gay marriage.

[shrinkermd]

Hard to excerpt. He gives a great number of statistics that are at variance with conventional wisdom. His c.v. is:

"...Larry M. Bartels, the director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton, is the author of “Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age.”

[MrB]

From what I gather, the elitists are bitter that the populace is too damn dumb to put the elites in power where they belong.

[OKIEDOC]

He pegged the elite using B. Hussein Obamas own bigoted rhetoric.

[mgc1122]

Without the teleprompter and professionaly prepared speech, he comes across every time as a stunningly stupid elitist.

The candidacy of Barack Obama is built upon a framework of infantile liberal fantasy that suggests if America elects him to the highest office in the land, a new world filled with nothing but peace & love will result.

We’ll all join hands, sing Kum Ba Ya and embrace collectivist Marxism — at least we unwashed masses. He’s the deliverer, a NEW age politician who’s gonna change…everything. No more greedy capitalism unless it benefits Democrats. Free health care for all complete with rationing. Terrorists will be embraced as revolutionary leaders of the downtrodden. Can I get an amen brudders & sisters?

Only idiots buy into it - unfortunately that is about 30% of the voting public at this point.

[BenLurkin]

No intelligent person would “count on Washington”.

No self respecting American would want to.

[OKIEDOC]

mgc1122 wrote:
Without the teleprompter and professionaly prepared speech, he comes across every time as a stunningly stupid elitist.

The candidacy of Barack Obama is built upon a framework of infantile liberal fantasy that suggests if America elects him to the highest office in the land, a new world filled with nothing but peace & love will result.

Courtesy Comment:

I posted yesterday that Obama and his rhetoric is incredibly close to that as used by Lenin during and after the Bolshevik revolution in mother Russia.

Lenin accused the general populace of being bitter when they failed to support his Marxists ideas.

I believe that Obama is an enigma secreted behind a facade of hope and change.

To say he is an egotistical Wolf in Lambs clothing is an understatement.

Obama has so many pretensions that he is beginning to mix himself up publicly as to where he stands on individual issues.

Unlike Hillary who is a pathological liar and just plain nasty, Obama is likeably cool as a cucumber in Reverend Wright's and Michele Obama’s salad of hatred and discontent for America.

Obama is having a hard time hiding the fact that his prior and current associations do carry great weight in shaping his socialist mindset.

Taking into consideration abortion,just one his narcissistic outlooks on life should tip off the most naïveté of voters that something is not quite right with this Marxists thinking Cat.

Thank God for this long and drawn out political season to air out Barrack Hussein Obama and his twisted ideals that are clearly dangerous to America and its citizens.

[Aquinasfan]

We’ll all join hands, sing Kum Ba Ya and embrace collectivist Marxism — at least we unwashed masses. He’s the deliverer, a NEW age politician who’s gonna change…everything.

The French and Russian revolutions worked out so well, why not?

[Aquinasfan]

Thank God for this long and drawn out political season to air out Barrack Hussein Obama and his twisted ideals that are clearly dangerous to America and its citizens.

People can complain about the long run-up to presidential elections all they want, but a long vetting time is necessary for the reason you give. Thank God for the long process. After all, the winner is going to have his finger on the button and SC appointments.

[D-fendr]

This is the Dem’s answer to the question:

“Why can’t we buy these voters?”

[Grampa Dave]

Bartels has spent his miserable adult life pushing the gay agendas and trying to take away our guns:

http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?fr=ybr_sbc&p=Larry%20M.%20Bartels%20+%20gay

Bartels and his Gay Master Pinch are prime examples of why the NY Slimes continues its downward spiral into the liberal cesspool of hell.

[Polybius]

Without the teleprompter and professionaly prepared speech, he comes across every time as a stunningly stupid elitist.

Maybe he should be a Hollywood actor.

[Grampa Dave]

" Crackerquiddick ~ Bitter Gate " is a Wright-size problem for the elitist Hussein Obamasnob!!

You can't win a general election with a coalition of America hating Bitter African- Americans and America hating Bitter white liberal elitist billionaires/millionaires, who buy brie, Chardonnay, and Hussein Obama/Samma.

For an inside look at the real Hussein Obama and his elite hate America backers at San Francisco where Hussein Obama made his elitist remarks,

Go here to see the thread with all The Pictures posted and Here to see another thread about this meeting of elite left wing America haters.

There are some very interesting pictures and comments re the actual meeting on those threads.

"Hussein Obama’s big mouth, small brain, condescending, America-hating, grandkid-baby-terminating, born-alive-infant-abandoning, America-hating-wife, kooky-moonbat-America-hating-pastor, racially-divisive, race-baiting, crotch-saluting, America-flag-disrespecting ... chickens ... coming home to roost ...!"

[Condor51]

Mr. Obama explained .... "But they don’t believe they can count on Washington."

Hey Barry ever hear of this...

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

Those 'my friend' are the scariest ten words in the English language. That, you can believe and count on.

[subterfuge]

No intelligent person would “count on Washington”. No self respecting American would want to.

Well said. I for one only wish I could "count on Washington"...to stay out of my way and out of my business and get back to the basic function of government, which is to protect our borders, maintain order and let us all make our own way.

[astounded]

“No intelligent person would “count on Washington”.

“No self respecting American would want to.”

Exactly! That is where the democrat elitists fall down. But, it also is where they troll for votes - among the non-self-respecting, ie, what’s in it for me, hands out “Americans”.

[Billthedrill]

What a fascinating article! Thanks for posting.

Small-town, working-class people are more likely than their cosmopolitan counterparts, not less, to say they trust the government to do what’s right.

Part of this may be that "the government" to this demographic includes local resources with whom they are familiar on a face-to-face basis; the lady at the DMV, the guy at the county assessor's office. To the more affluent demographic "the government" is perceived as a monolithic bureaucracy involved with the Great Questions of foreign and social policies. Government is efficient as an inverse function of distance, IMHO. Outside of rifle range it falls off rapidly. This may not be coincidental.

It is true that American voters attach significantly more weight to social issues than they did 20 years ago. It is also true that church attendance has become a stronger predictor of voting behavior. But both of those changes are concentrated primarily among people who are affluent and well educated, not among the working class.

That is simply not as I assumed it to be, but if Bartels' numbers are correct it explains quite a bit. That one I'm going to have to think over a bit.

Mr. Obama should do as well or better among these voters if he is the Democratic candidate in November. If he doesn’t, it won’t be because he has offended the tender sensitivities of small-town Americans. It will be because he has embraced a misleading stereotype of who they are and what they care about.

With that I have no argument whatever. Clearly from his remarks Obama is laboring under some serious stereotypical misapprehensions. I don't think it has anything to do with race at all - Hillary shows the same disconnect, as do Kerry, Dean, Kennedy, and the rest of the Democratic leadership. That the Dems have a connection with the common people that the Republicans do not is probably the biggest phony stereotype of them all, and stereotypes tend to be expensive luxuries when they refer to people whose votes you need.

[quant5]

Yeah, good times indeed!

[infowarrior]

Government is efficient as an inverse function of distance, IMHO. Outside of rifle range it falls off rapidly. This may not be coincidental.

It most assuredly is *not* a coincidence...

the infowarrior

[the invisib1e hand]

(Social Issues are the Opiate of the Elites not Small Town America)

Well said, this.