As someone who has been mightily impressed by the political acumen of Senator Obama and his staff, I am among those who wouldn’t be surprised if Jesse Jackson’s “gaffe” of last week wasn’t as accidental as it appears. From a strategic standpoint, an opportunity for Senator Obama to distance himself from Reverend Jackson could get him a second look from voters with a, to be charitable, “less sophisticated” understanding who might otherwise tend to assume all African-American political figures held the same beliefs. With this “rift,” these voters, who might not hold Reverend Jackson in the highest of esteem, might now take a second look at Obama.
The New Yorker controvery could present an even greater opportunity.
One of the most unfair shots taken at Barack and Michelle Obama in my view is the “elitist” tag. That the son of a mother who was on food stamps, and the daughter of a blue-collar Chicago family, are someone deemed more “elitist” that the son of a Navy admiral and the heiress to a multimillion dollar brewing fortune is deeply offensive to me. Barack and Michelle can relate to the struggle of working and middle class Americans in a way that John and Cindy never can – because they are working and middle class Americans, people who achieved their current stature by virtue of hard work and achievement. What they have done with their lives is what all Americans are told can be done with their lives – as opposed to, say, inheriting a bunch of money from a business your dad got for going to jail to protect a mobster. Or dumping your first wife to marry someone who inherited that money.
So along comes this New Yorker cover. Whatever the intent, it’s a crude and ham-fisted depiction of some of the worst slurs against the Obamas. While the coverage depicts the drawing over and over again, it also includes almost universal condemnation of the cover. The McCain camp joins in on the condemnation. So, over and over again today, Americans hear that the New Yorker took a cheap shot at Obama, and that Obama’s campaign has condemned them for it.
So we have Obama versus the New Yorker. A magazine that is the bible of a certain segment of Manhattan intelligensia, and those who aspire to it. A magazine that does not exactly reflect the sensibilities of “NASCAR dads” and “soccer moms” and the other “hardworking Americans” that Obama is supposedly having trouble reaching. A magazine whose most famous cover:
depicted New York City as the center of the universe, and the rest of the country as more or less irrelevant. A magazine whose very name reeks of a certain sophisicated exclusivity.
In short, a magazine that is elitist.
So suddenly, the allegedly “elitist” Barack and Michelle Obama are being mocked and caricatured and ridiculed by the most definitely elitist New Yorker. And all day long, Americans are hearing about how the New Yorker has treated Barack and Michelle unfairly. Could this coverage actually make a few voters on the fence not only see the ridiculousness of the unfounded allegations reproduced on the cover, but also recognize that Barack and Michelle are hardly “elitists,” but rather Americans whose success embodies the American Dream in a way Senator Dumpyourfirstwife and Mrs. Mafiabeerheiress never can?
And that would be worth a fist bump. Even in a cartoon.
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