Some Are More Equal Than Others

The LA Times covers Mitt Romney's Hamptons fundraiser:

A New York City donor a few cars back, who also would not give her name, said Romney needed to do a better job connecting. "I don't think the common person is getting it," she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. "Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them.



"We've got the message," she added. "But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies -- everybody who's got the right to vote -- they don't understand what's going on. I just think if you're lower income -- one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works, they don't understand how the systems work, they don't understand the impact." (bold mine - JMG)

While quotes like this are not that surprising, it is no less nauseating to see the well-to-do parade around their own high-minded opinion of themselves. Even worse — in my mind — is the heads I win, tails you lose logic to it; if you're poor, you're not educated enough to make the decision I agree with, and if you're educated like me, you'll vote for the candidate that wants to slash Federal investments in education[1], among other things.



[1]From the CBPP:

The cuts that would be required under the Romney budget proposals in programs such as veterans’ disability compensation, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for poor elderly and disabled individuals, SNAP (formerly food stamps), and child nutrition programs would move millions of households below the poverty line or drive them deeper into poverty. The cuts in Medicare and Medicaid would make health insurance unaffordable (or unavailable) to tens of millions of people. The cuts in non-defense discretionary programs — a spending category that covers a wide variety of public services such as elementary and secondary education, law enforcement, veterans’ health care, environmental protection, and biomedical research — would come on top of the deep cuts in this part of the budget that are already in law due to the discretionary funding caps established in last year’s Budget Control Act (BCA).

Complaints and Compliments

Dave Weigel reports from Alabama and Mississippi's March primary, asking some of the Republican primary voters "why did Obama ever win in the first place?" The answers are for the most part conservative boilerplate; voter fraud, white guilt, naïveté of young voters, etc. I wanted to highlight one respondent's statements, because I think it revels some of the idiosyncrasies of the conservative mindset.

Kerry Anderson of Biloxi, Mississippi* laments that:

“[Obama] fooled the young people, mostly. He fooled the people looking for an easier way of life, and he made them belief life would be easier, the government would take care of things if he won. It bothers me that young people aren’t better-informed. We older people, we stay informed. I should say: I’m on Medicare, but I still work. I was on the election commission in the county this year.” (emphasis mine - JMG)

The criticism Ms. Anderson is trying to make here is quite clear, and is a part of the longstanding, implicit conservative allergy to government solutions to social problems - especially at the federal level. But the literal complaint; that if elected life wold be easier and that the government should step in to solve social problems, well, I have to agree that that was part of the logic of Obama's candidacy.



Take healthcare: Barack Obama campaigned on, and signed legislation enshrining, the idea that it should be easier to purchase health insurance, and that government would solve the issues of adverse selection and pre-existing conditions that has plagued the United States' heath insurance market since (arguably) the Truman administration. I understand Mrs. Anderson is articulating a complaint, but really it sounds like a compliment.



*For disclosure, I am a native of, and still have roots in, Biloxi and Gulfport, MS.