I know my generally effusive gushing over Senator Obama's oratorical skills trend to the realm of guy-love. But there is something I wish Senator Obama would have said, something I wish he would have risked. Obama has allowed himself to be painted as an elitist. I have so many issues with the nation and the media perceiving being "elite" as bad. I for one want our elite running the country, not our average, but then maybe that's me.
That aside. Obama refused in all of the bitter-gate controversy to give the kind of speech on economic diversity in this country as he did on racism in this country. He never took a moment like the one in Philadelphia and told the country that he was raised by a single mother, that at one point collected food stamps, that he and his wife only recently finished paying off his student loans. That he grew up playing basketball, being called Barry by his friends. In other words that his rise to relative stardom here in America is the embodiment of the American Dream. Moreover, he didn't say the one thing I missed most. I longed for a moment over the course of Pennsylvania and North Carolina and Indiana, for him to say just once.
"Don't call me elitist because I refuse to talk to you all as if you are stupid. Don't let the other side paint me as something I'm not because I speak to truths we'd rather not acknowledge."
But then he couldn't do that. What does it say about this leader, that he was too cautious to tell Americans what they really didn't want to hear?
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