“Obama: Learning the limits of his advisers’ class-warfare strategy.”

Mark Cunningham’s article Why Bam’s Flailing, in the September 10 New York Post, makes clear why Obama’s numbers are slipping and his solid ground has turned to shifting sands. Simply put, Axelrod’s main tactic of stirring up class warfare and playing the race-card in a divide-and-conquer strategy doesn’t work on the national stage. Cunningham writes:

IF it suddenly seems like the Obama campaign doesn’t have any idea what it’s doing, maybe that’s because it doesn’t.

Barack Obama has never run a campaign against a real Republican. And his main strategist, David Axelrod, is way out of his areas of expertise.

Axelrod specializes inurban politics. He’s run a bunch of mayoral races (usually in cities with lots of blacks), plus contests in true-blue states like Massachusetts and New York.

By creating a culture war between the so-called Whole Foods Nation and working class Americans, Axerod’s tactics worked for Deval Patrick, but not for Freddy Ferrer in the 2005 New York race for mayor or for John Edwards’ primary run in 2004. Cunningham points out Axelrod’s overt class warfare tactics, which included naming sides:

New Yorkers may recall that he was on the Freddy Ferrer team – and how the class-warfare theme of “the Two New Yorks” managed to lose the 2005 mayoral race in a city that’s overwhelmingly Democratic.

Nor did the same shtick do much for Axelrod client John Edwards, who didn’t exactly score big with “the Two Americas” in the Democrats’ 2004 presidential primaries.

As to Deval “just words?” Patrick’s victory in Massachusetts, which also depended on Axelrod’s talents at divisiveness, Cunningham writes:

By the way, it’s not much of a governing philosophy: After less than a year on the job, Patrick has job-approval ratings to rival President Bush’s.

Sarah Palin, John McCain’s pick for VP, has thrown this class warfare strategy into stark contrast. The press and blogs have gone after Palin like meth-heads after a fix. Foaming at the mouth and euphoric at the opportunity to name call, the media sees Palin as the antithesis of the Moveon.org crowd, and more of the poster child for Walmart than for Whole Foods. And rather than be shamed as they think she should be, Palin is proud of that fact.

Joe Bageant, author of Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War, has a excellent article about this divide in the September 6 edition of BBC Today. Bagent writes:

During this US election cycle we are hearing a lot from the pundits and candidates about “heartland voters,” and “white working class voters.”

What they are talking about are rednecks. But in their political correctness, media types cannot bring themselves to utter the word “redneck.” So I’ll say it for them: redneck-redneck-redneck-redneck.

Bagent is being somewhat facetious in his use of the term “redneck” but not in his description of how the pundits, the politicians and the media work vigorously to attack this culture and their values. According to Bagent, “The term redneck indicates a lifestyle and culture that can be found in every state in our union.” His list of these values is relevant here:

• Belief that no law is above God’s law, not even the US Constitution.

• Hyper patriotism. A fighting defence of native land, home and heart, even when it is not actually threatened: ie, Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Haiti and dozens more with righteous operations titles such as Enduring Freedom, Restore Hope, and Just Cause.

• A love of guns and tremendous respect for the warrior ideal. Along with this comes a strong sense of fealty and loyalty. Fealty to wartime leaders, whether it be FDR or George Bush.

• Self effacement, humility. We are usually the butt of our own jokes, in an effort not to appear aloof among one another.

• Belief that most things outside our own community and nation are inferior and threatening, that the world is jealous of the American lifestyle.

• Personal pride in equality. No man, however rich or powerful, is better than me.

• Perseverance and belief in hard work. If a man or a family is poor, it is because they did not work hard enough. God rewards those who work hard enough. So does the American system.

• The only free country in the world is the United States, and the only reason we ever go to war is to protect that freedom.

It’s not such a mystery that the mean machine of the Democratic primaries, which stole the nomination away from Sen. Hillary Clinton, is sputtering so badly now.

We all understand that there is a political class which dominates in America, and that Sarah Palin for damned sure is not one of them. And the more she is attacked by liberal Democratic elements (translation: elite highly-educated big city people) the more America’s working mooks will come to her defence. Her daughter had a baby out of wedlock? Big deal. What family has not? She is a Christian fundamentalist who believes God spat on his beefy paws and made the world in seven days? So do at least 150 million other Americans. She snowmobiles and fishes and she is a looker to boot. She’s a redneck.