Redstate

And can we figure out some way to make sure that he or she runs the Democratic general campaign?

By Moe Lane Posted in 2008 | Obamafiles | The Best Democratic Primary EVER — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

This is excellent news:

Rural Democratic strategist Dave "Mudcat" Saunders had spent much of the last few days turkey hunting out in the Roanoke, Va., area, on a stretch to the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountain known as Five Mile Mountain, so when I reached him on Saturday he hadn't heard about the remarks Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., made about small town Americans.

"It's Spring gobbler season," explains Saunders, a former strategist for former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who helped Edwards reach out to what he called the Bubba vote.

Not so much his discussion of the relative impacts of both Obama and Clinton's gaffes (discussion of that below the fold), but that he's clearly not doing anything official while the Democratic campaign season is in an extended rural phase. Mudcat isn't quite the political fixer that his reputation makes him out to be, but his instincts are sound. If he was off turkey hunting instead of working, it's because neither campaign's was better.

Read on.

The very short version: according to Mudcat, Clinton's Bosnia gaffe has more legs than people realize

"I've heard several remarks in restaurants about that," he says. "Here in a small town, in rural America, there's a high degree of patriotism."

"There's a lot of veterans out here, it's part of the culture, a lot of people go into the service.

"And have heard some veterans -- neither Republican nor Democrat, just veterans, just regular guys, raise holy hell about Hillary and the Bosnia episode," Saunders says.

- and it may be enough to overshadow Obama's "bitter" gaffe. That last shouldn't be heartening to his supporters. Saunders considers the Bosnia thing to be a very big deal, and he sees a strong chance for the elitism thing to be just as big. Just give it a bit, first:

When I ask how folks out in Roanoke are responding, Saunders says "It's not been long enough for Sen. Obama's remarks. People don't -- out in rural America -- sit and watch cable news networks. Nor do they get on the Internet and go to the DailyKos or the Huffington Post.

"But once it gets out there it will move and move quickly," he says.

Mind you, even if neither of these stories gets discussed any further now - likely for Clinton, highly unlikely for Obama - we'll be happy to bring either one up during the general election (or both, if that's the way it goes). It's very nice of the Democrats to keep writing our campaign ads for us; it's also nice that they keep trying to pander to people in ways that make Mickey Kaus quasi-despair:

P.S.: Andrew Sullivan[*] and John Rosenberg both say that Obama's "cling" argument comes from Thomas Frank's economistic "What's the Matter with Kansas?"--which seems semi-tragic to me. The great achievement of Republicanism over the past decade, I'm convinced, was getting average Americans to think that it was the Democrats who were the snobs. The person who convinced me of this (in a highly persuasive lecture) was Thomas Frank. Now Frank's theories--if you follow Rosenberg--are on the verge of convincing millions of average Americans that the Republicans were right, at least about the likely Dem nominee. ...

Not that you should think that this means that I have anything personal against Mickey. He's just the messenger.

Moe Lane

*I puzzled over whether to include the Andy Sullivan link, until I noticed that Kaus goofed up and linked to Rosenberg's piece (which you should read). As I don't care enough about what Sullivan thinks to look him up on my own, I'm calling this "serendipitous" and moving on.