The "bitter" end ...

OK, I'll put in my 2 cents worth on the Obama remark about "bitter" underpaid Americans turning to (well, "clinging" to) cultural issues like guns and religion as a basis on which to vote.

New York Times blogger Dan Schnur argues today that questioning working-class voters' vote against their own economic interests amounts to liberal elitism and that Democrats just don't get it about the importance of values.

He makes a good point that non-economic matters
drive the cultural-values voting behavior of both poor conservative
people and rich liberal people. But Schnur says there's a double standard -- in questioning those cultural-issues-based-voting by poor, working class people, and not questioning cultural-issues-based voting by those in Martha's Vinyard or Beverly Hills.

Rich liberal people aren't voting their economic interests when
they are voting on "cultural issues" that require money and taxes. But rich people have far more latitude to vote against their own economic  interests... call it noblesse oblige in honor of the Titanic anniversary ... because they can afford to. So I do not see it as  wrong to question the motivations of those who against their own economic interests who CAN'T really afford to do so. It becomes more crucial and more interesting. Questioning that voting behavior is observation, not an "insult" to the underclass of America, or the blue-collar worker just trying to get by.

Obama said they vote on softer issues because they're bitter, or hopeless, about money, and why shouldn't they be? What president has done ANYTHING for them lately? Or for me, the middle class wage-earner, for that matter? If underclass and middle class voters had any sense, we'd all vote for the candidate who best supports unions, higher wages and better working conditions.

The argument becomes circular. Poor conservative people are hopeless and bitter, so they vote on issues other than pay, and then those cultural issues become prominent and nobody does anything for them economically because economics is not what got those votes. Guns and abortion and opposition to gay marriage got them those votes. So politicians have carte-blanche to continue to blather about guns and abortion and gay people and do nothing economically for the people who elected them ... their base, as it were.

I think the circle breaks down if, say, the liberal rich Democrat votes against his or her pocketbook and for, say, initiatives on global warming. If those initiatives rise to the forefront, are they going to complain about their taxes being raised? Probably, yes. But they don't have to. They can afford the higher taxes. Cultural issues are gravy.

I haven't put this very well. But suffice it to say that when candidates talk about voting behavior they are following social science. They're not trying to insult anyone. Obama calling this electorate 'bitter' is hardly revolutionary with the president having only 28 percent approval and the country having long rejected the still ongoing, and seemingly endless, Iraq war.

The NYT editorial page sums up the whole silliness of Democrats talking about duck blinds, shots of whiskey and God. That's Republican territory. How'd they get there?

Maybe what we need to do is redefine cultural values, and value-based issues. Values aren't just what one pundit ... or American political party ... decides they are. Yes, values include marriage, the constitutional right to bear arms, the constitutional right to practice the religion of your choice. Values also include inclusion, equal opportunity, tolerance and peace.