The reality behind the Obama "religion and guns" flap

Comment on The Daily Kos, April 13, 2008

The reality is that the Clinton campaign has traction at this point only insofar as it receives or invents another opportunity to hyperventilate about wedge issues -- which aren't substantive but are really rhetorical distractions. And that's what Hillary is doing now, by taking a new ride on her Let's-Bash-Barack bandwagon, in reaction to Obama's "clinging to religion and guns" remark about working-class voters who feel threatened.

Substantively, Senator Obama was describing reasons why people who've been left behind by the economy and been forgotten by government turn bitter -- and he was right: When they're down and out, people take comfort in what gives them a sense of strength and self-reliance, and in many parts of America, that means turning to God and falling back on the old stance of "don't tread on me" (sometimes signified by the rifle your father gave you, hanging in the back window of the pick-up you drive to church).

Obama didn't say that being religious or liking guns was a function of bitterness or fear. "Say a prayer and pass the ammunition" is not just a wartime expression, it's an attitude based on circling the wagons and hunkering down, and Americans have had plenty of crises in their history when they felt like doing just that. But it's not just an American instinct -- it's a common response anywhere chaos looms, and many Americans may be facing the worst economic disarray of their lifetimes. They didn't produce the conditions that are now battering the economy, but they've got to cope with them -- which government has failed to do.

And that's what Obama was saying. His words showed no condescension or elitism, only an attempt to understand what people are feeling. What he hasn't done is to pander to their fears, or try to alienate them from his opponents, something Senator Clinton seems unable to resist doing.