STUCK ON MARXISM:

Houses Add Up to A Snag for McCain: Campaign Has Cast Obama as Elitist (Jonathan Weisman and Robert Barnes, 8/22/08, Washington Post)

Sen. John McCain's inability to recall the number of homes he owns during an interview yesterday jeopardized his campaign's carefully constructed strategy to frame Democratic rival Barack Obama as an out-of-touch elitist and inspired a round of attacks that once again ratcheted up the negative tone of the race for the White House.

The poor Democrats still think elitism is a function of wealth and that Americans are consumed with class envy. But people don't hate intellectuals--academics and the like--because they're wealthy, they aren't. The Brights and Kansas are at war over values.

MORE:
Can Obama win over those voters who find him pompous? (David Lightman and Margaret Talev, 8/21/08, McClatchy Newspapers)

Something about Barack Obama's manner bothers Margaret Cowan.

"There's something egotistical about him," the Sheridan, Colo., retiree said. "It's the way he struts around."

Many swing voters here and throughout the country consider the presumptive Democratic nominee distant, pompous, arrogant, even elitist.

"It's a big issue that he needs to address," said Eric Davis, a professor emeritus of political science at Middlebury College in Vermont.

Obama has Ivy League degrees from Columbia and Harvard universities. He's extraordinarily articulate and exudes self-confidence. Those credentials and qualities combine to strike some people as arrogant.

As Americans, we all think we -- or our kids, at any rate -- could have a lot of money one day. None of us wish we had the manners of the Ivory Tower crowd.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 22, 2008 6:58 AM