Public Comment

Barack Obama’s political faux pas at the Marin county fundraiser is certainly something he could have done without, especially in light of the fact that his poll numbers were beginning to look good in Pennsylvania against his opponent. We don’t know if he was being candid or he merely misspoke. But whatever his intention was, this is exactly the sort of ammunition you don’t want to provide your opponents in this age of information where news propagates like wildfire click by click. Even though if you read his statement in full and not out of context, the last sentence of that statement doesn’t sound as bad as his opponents may like the voters to realize. But for McCain and Hillary to call him elitist is not only laughable but just plain disingenuous. 

I was quite appalled when Hillary said that Obama was out of touch, and he didn’t connect with the average folks in small town U.S.A. But when she further tried to identify herself with the plight of the common worker with this unabashed statement, “That has not been my experience,” I nearly fell out of my chair. This is from a candidate whose household has made $109 million since leaving the White House, and this is from someone who has not seen a day of poverty in her life, or hobnobbed with working class folks except for campaign appearances and photo ops? This is the sort of unsavory politics which renders me gastro intestinally ill at ease. But I wonder if the voters will see through this charade considering the substandard media that is fed to them incessantly. 

I know McCain’s campaign has been trying to find any chink in Obama’s armor because they already expect him to be the opponent, but they would rather take it up against Hillary who is probably more beatable in the general election. Naturally, they have joined the choir here, and are now expressing their phony outrage over his statement along with the Republican Party who smells some blood. But McCain is no commoner either; born in a family of admirals (both his father and grandfather) he didn’t see much of the common man’s diurnal dilemma. But he became even wealthier after his marriage to Cindy Hensley McCain, whose family has fortunes from Hensley & Co. , the exclusive distributor of Anheuser-Busch beer in Arizona. Hensley & Co. is the nation’s fifth largest beer distributor. 

I wonder if the voters of Pennsylvania and the remaining primary voters will find out about the hypocrisy of the two candidates, and about their fortunes, and their elite social statuses. The pots are calling the kettle black, but Obama doesn’t even qualify as kettle in terms of wealth and background. 

Rizwan A. Rahmani is an Oakland resident.