It has been the conversation of the last few days and really asks the serious question if this freshman senator from Illinois is so smug to not care that he is insulting working and middle class  Americans or if he is so clueless as not to know that he is doing so. I think the former. Obama is a smart politician and people who take him lightly do so at their peril. He is smooth when he has to be and can give a speech that says nothing and still has everyone talking about how masterful  he is with the English language. So why the misses? Why the comments that turn off the very voters he will need now during the primary and  later in November?

Here are some thoughts.

Obama has an agenda that heretofore has been covered with platitudes and slogans. He has not been very specific. What most people see is an energetic young man of color who offers "change."  And the first thing he is offering up to the voters is that he is NOT Hillary Clinton.
The excitement palyed to his strengths and the media found a new darling to dote on. Add a ruffled Bill Clinton and the media decided that the Clintons were history. So the so-called  "mainstream" or "old" media has hitched its wagon to the young Obama. and cast off the tried old shoe we call Hillary Clinton.

Not that Hillary is going quietly into that good night.

No, her people have pulled out the race card and publicly insinuated that the public will not vote for ....dare I say it.... a black man.

The reaction has been predictable.

but what does this have to do with Obama saying things that at first glance are very dumb. Well, he was speaking to a certain  group of elites. He still has to pass their muster. And the real truth - unstated as it is -about rich white liberals, is that many of them are more "racially biased" ( I will be polite and not say "bigoted") than the stereotypical white southerner as portrayed in liberal white newspapers.
And there is a pecking order in society that Obama has to chart. So by playing the fellow who can explain the problems of those people who are "bitter" to his new rich white San Francisco liberal friends, he make a contact and establishes a bond. He has studied at the exclusive schools. His comments infer the notion that "he has dedicated myself to activating the "poor."  He is telling them that we are so much different as we pity these people who do not know. After all he infers, "we Democrats know best. " 

So he will take the slings and arrows for a few days. But the press will cover for him. He will lose Pennsylvania but it won't be by too much, he figures, and by the way, he is meeting with Casey ands Roemer to work out a Catholic strategy. 

Of course he is also banking on McCain being a gentleman in the general. He figures that press will keep McCain off guard answering all the old questions once again and no one will look behind the curtain.

An interesting strategy. However it is not over until it is over. Hillary is not going to let him with the nomination without a fight to the finish. He probably knows that by now.  Yet the scrutiny will continue and the more that America sees that this freshman Senator with the racist pastor, the rich lawyer wife who was never proud of America until now, the business connection who is on trial in Chicago,  is the same fellow who rad into an autobiographical book on tape profanities and foul language, the same fellow who calls pregnancy a punishment, who is the most liberal member of the Senate, who wants to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, and whose only vote he regrets was the one that tried to help save a medically dependent women's life, the more America will reject such extremism.

Obama thinks that he can be smug and above it all.

However Obama does not understand the American people. They are a decent people. They have a heart. They have a soul. They may not want to address some issues because they are repelled by them, but for the most part they are a caring people.  These are the people who make America work every day. They are believers and they trust in their fellow citizens. Yes there are problems, but they believe thatthe solutions come form hard work and a willingness to be invested in the fabric of the community.

The American people will not want a smug arrogant freshman who will need on the job training . Once the American people see the real Obama, they will reject him and his failed liberal divisive polices. The media will claim it is because of race.  But it will be a choice between McCain's experience under fire and the incompetence of a youth without wisdom.