Honour Your Inner Magpie

DailyKos linked to something this morning that serendipitously goes with something I transcribed yesterday, so I have to post both of them together here. The link was to an article at In These Times, which says in part:

As a labor leader, Lewandowski remained neutral in the Indiana primary, which Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) narrowly won, but he personally supported Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) (after his first choice, John Edwards, dropped out of the race). Obama’s “organizer mindset” appealed to Lewandowski, who has been building a working-class community affiliate of the labor movement. Obama’s March 18 Philadelphia speech on race in America further impressed him.

Now Lewandowski wants Obama to take another big step, one that could strengthen Obama’s appeal among white working-class voters who have gravitated more toward Clinton, as they did again in Indiana and North Carolina.

“Like what he did with his Philadelphia speech on race, he needs a speech on class,” Lewandowski says. “But, of course, we don’t have class in America.”

Obama would do well to take Lewandowski’s advice.

Interesting they should say that. Yesterday, I transcribed something from Obama's website, from one of the videos there. Here's Michelle Obama on opportunity:

"Our girls, Malia and Sasha, are the light of our lives. They keep us grounded and whole because they're kids, they're eight and five, and they care about getting a dog, and what they've done today, and how their lives are interesting and full. And what we are reminded of every day when we see them is that every child should be able to enjoy what they enjoy: that freedom of just having so much opportunity. And too many children in our country don't have that -- and it's not enough that our girls do."

I should unfold why I transcribed that: it's about class. The whole tightrope performance by his detractors of Obama being portrayed as "elitist" is simultaneously being played against the right-wing baiting about race, although that's not quite as crude as the drug-use-and-was-he-selling? rumors of a while ago.

Race-baiting collapses class.

To unfold that a little more, all I can do at the moment is refer to a conversation

pisces3857 and I had once, back when we worked at Minnesota Public Radio. We were discussing television shows of a while back, and he said that the Cosby Show had one particular thing going for it: it was the only show on television that portrayed a middle-class black family.

Obama, as a community organizer, has a keen appreciation of exactly how fortunate he is. So does Michelle Obama, for all sorts of reasons. I saw what she was saying right away.

(And I guess I saw it so clearly that I didn't know I needed to unfold it -- but somebody to whom I showed the post as I posted it said it was a bit oblique, so I have unfolded it now.)