Applied Epistemology

It's funny. When I assessed Obama's chances before the primaries began, I thought he'd never connect with ordinary folks; he has always struck me as sounding rather like, well, a typical liberal Oxy student (albeit a very articulate one). I felt it fairly likely, even as late as pre-Super Tuesday, that he would go the way of George McGovern and Gary Hart. But he has beaten the odds -- even after, surprisingly late in the campaign, his opponents finally realized that -- duh -- he is a classic Adlai Stevenson-style intellectual liberal Democrat. How did he manage to avoid the "elitist" label for so long? And how does he continue to deflect that angle of attack, even after his bluntly Frankfurt School "cling to religion and guns" remarks have become well-aired?

(In part, it's because Hillary is not a very plausible alternative when it comes to the "bubba" factor.)

But for the most part, I think the simplest explanation for Obama's teflon against the "elitist" albatross is his skin color. Blacks aren't seen as intellectual limousine liberals, even when they are. And blacks will vote for this private-schooled head of the Harvard Law Review, married to a wealthy corporate lawyer, because, well, he's "one of us". Geraldine Ferraro was telling the truth: a white guy with Obama's resume would never have gotten this close to the presidency, not in 2008.