I See Regular People

by digby

A month or so ago Chris Matthews gave an interview to the NY Observer and he said this:

The galloping campaign, in Mr. Matthews’ estimation, was that of Senator Barack Obama. He had the momentum, was in the saddle, was holding the reigns. But had Mr. Obama become the avant-garde candidate? If so, he was in trouble. The middle-class workers would pull back in suspicion. Who was this Ivy League guy on his, um, high horse? They wouldn’t get on board. The galloping horse of history might pass them by

I predicted this would become one of the themes of the campaign, part of the “cult” meme taking shape under conservative message massagers.

Sure enough, the bowling thing seems to have brought old Chris back to his “thesis:”

MATTHEWS: OK. Let me ask you about how he — how’s he connect with regular people? Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?

Remember back in the dark days of 2004, when it was assumed that anyone who didn’t live in a small town in Nebraska or Alabama was automatically not a Real American? When we were all told to take our latte sipping, New York Times reading asses back to where we done come from? Yep, here we are again. (African Americans, of course, have never been considered “regular people” by conservatives. Nothing new there.)

I mentioned in my previous post that the right was going to play this up as part of their “Barack ain’t quite right” theme. Matthews will be there to help them along just as he always does. He is, after all, a multimillionaire celebrity who plays a blue collar working man on TV. Like Tim Russert. And George W. Bush. And many other Republican fat cats. Nothing new here.

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