Obama needs to be reminded that words matter

Posted 9/10/2008 12:55:00 PM

I didn’t originally think Barack Obama did much damage to his campaign when he said at an April fundraiser in San Francisco that many rural Pennsylvanians respond to their economic plight by becoming “bitter” and clinging to guns, religion, hostility toward people who are different from them and anti-immigrant and anti-trade sentiment.

All politicians make careless statements once in awhile, especially when they don’t realize those words will become public. I figured it would blow over.

I now think I was wrong. I believe Obama’s comment was the beginning of an avalanche that currently has the Democratic presidential nominee buried under the momentum Sarah Palin has brought to John McCain’s campaign.

After making such a foolish statement, Obama needed to rebound by showing rural voters he understands and respects them, particularly on the issues of God and guns. Instead, he’s done the opposite.

Ambiguous on guns

I first began to suspect trouble for Obama in June, when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the right of Americans to have guns in their homes for self-defense by striking down a Washington, D.C. ban on handguns in homes and requirements that other firearms be equipped with trigger locks or disassembled. An Obama staffer had previously told the Chicago Tribune that “Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.”

But on the day of the high court’s decision, the campaign backtracked, calling the previous statement “an inartful attempt to explain the senator’s consistent position” -- as if the prior statement was ambiguous. Then Obama gave a new, quite ambiguous answer that didn’t answer the question of whether he supported the court’s decision. When criticism persisted, he shifted gears the next day and said he supported the court’s decision.

Obama didn’t win over any Second Amendment enthusiasts with his waffling and spin.

Flippant on abortion

Then in August, during a televised interview with Pastor Rick Warren at Saddleback Church in California, Obama dodged one of the most important questions to many watching. Asked when a baby gets human rights, Obama said the question is “above my pay grade.”

It was a flippant response, which Obama later figured out. He said this weekend on ABC’s This Week that his answer was “probably” too flip.

“What I intended to say is that, as a Christian, I have a lot of humility about understanding when does the soul enter into… It’s a pretty tough question,” Obama said in the interview. “And so, all I meant to communicate was that I don’t presume to be able to answer these kinds of theological questions.”

Obama’s unwise words vs. Palin’s consistent views

Obama’s actual views on guns and abortion are ones most Americans can respect, even if they disagree: The Second Amendment, he believes, does give individuals the right to own guns for self defense, but governments should be able to regulate that right, within reason. Abortion should almost always be legal, he believes, but Americans should work together to reduce the number of abortions as much as possible.

But, in the words of Obama, words matter. Making flippant comments and spinning shifty positions, especially after he made the most careless comment of his campaign -- the one about rural Pennsylvanians -- created an opening for another candidate to fire up religious and rural voters.

In that regard, McCain’s picking Palin was brilliant. She’s as pro-Second Amendment and pro-life as they come. On two of the issues most important to many rural voters, there couldn’t be a starker contrast between Obama’s unwise comments and Palin’s consistent views. I believe that is the primary reason for the recent shift in the polls in McCain’s favor.

Palin’s views may be overly simplistic and fail to recognize the complexities of living on this planet. Obama’s brilliance is in his ability to get past bumper-sticker politics and effectively capture the grey at the center of nearly every policy debate. Obama had the attention of religious and rural moderates and conservatives early on because of their frustration with the Bush presidency and Obama’s ability to convey the grey.

But, because of poor word choice, Obama has failed to turn that attention into support. He has failed to show those voters that he understands and respects them.

There’s still time. The honeymoon between the American public and Palin will soon end. Obama will have another opportunity to grab enough rural votes to win the election. But he’ll have to show, with his words, that he respects these voters and takes their issues seriously.