Guns 'n' God

Roughly four years ago, I remember hearing one of the most inane campaign quotes ever. It went something like, “Who would you want protecting your family: George Bush with a shotgun or John Kerry with his snowboard?” Why Kerry, a man who in fact had to shoot a real gun with real bullets during his tour in Vietnam, would decide to use a snowboard to protect a family, I will never know. But that’s what they thought of him.\nThe snowboard comment came out of the fact that many saw Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, as an elitist rich guy who I guess decides to protect himself with winter-sport accessories. But the comment, by itself a ridiculous train wreck of logic, was trying to hint at something even more sinister: Kerry is elitist, and he does not understand you.\nNow the term “elitist” is being trotted out again, this time against presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, who had the audacity to suggest that many voters cling to the politics of guns, God and anti-immigration because of their own financial interests. Imagine that!\nLet’s not forget that Congress named the National Rifle Association the most powerful lobbying organization in the country. Let’s not forget that the issue of religion has come up time and time again for the candidates, especially Obama. And let’s not forget that in 2004, Bush adviser Karl Rove famously used churches as political rallying points to mobilize the 4 million evangelicals who hadn’t voted in 2000. Rove knew, as all politicians do, that certain wedge issues are crucial in any campaign strategy. Political writer Sam Stein describes it perfectly: “People were voting against their economic interests because conservatives had galvanized them around political-identity issues.”\nIs this really a mystery to anybody why Obama would say such a thing? And shouldn’t we be debating his point rather than crying and calling him elitist?\nRemember when Kerry had to put on that ridiculous hunting outfit and go goose hunting just weeks before the election? How about Sen. Hillary Clinton’s new found love for telling her ol’ hunting stories? This is not identifying with “gun” voters, it is patronizing them. I find this sad plea for votes far more offensive than anything Obama said. But that is identity politics mixed with wedge issues, and it’s about time someone said something about how horrible the two can be mixed together.\nWilliam Kristol is a one-person echo chamber for the right wing when he asks: “What has Barack Obama accomplished that entitles him to look down on his fellow Americans?” I guess Kristol assumes that a critique of certain issues’ importance for many people (in this case gun control, religion and immigration) is an example of disdain or “looking down” on Americans. But it is the exact opposite. It is an honest critique of the unfortunate way politics are being played out in America today and the ways in which normal Americans have been taken advantage of.\nThat is anything but “elitist.”