In the middle of his “The McGovernization of Obama” at National Review’s Corner, Victor Davis Hanson raises a very interesting issue, whether the Obamas have much experience not just in governing, but also in politicking:

“They” [for the small towns]. This evokes Michelle’s similar “they” (as in the “they” who raised the proverbial bar on the Obamas), and likewise suggests both hostility and a certain us/they contempt for a slice of America that the Obamas apparently know very little about—but for the first time in their lives are rapidly discovering.

They don’t know enough about the country, that is, which fits with the overriding argument that they don’t know enough about anything.  This speaks to the narrow gauge of black experience.  They see less of the country, in part because of ingrained habits of staying with their own, in part because what they see, they see with black eyes. 

Whites see with white eyes, but its their culture for the most part, allowing for incursions of blackness, especially in entertainment and athletics; and they get around more.  Small towns, for instance, have darn few native Chicagoans; but white native Chicagoans visit them quite a bit.

As for Hanson’s main point, it’s a killer: O. talks the talk of the latte liberal, in this case to a quintessential example of it, the San Franciscan, and will walk the walk if elected.  And voters will catch on, and he will win two states. 

“I still believe that by August, Obama, the half-term rookie Senator, will have become the second George McGovern,” says H., before quoting O. about small towns in Pennsylvania.  He explicates the San Francisco spiel, with much attention to Jeremiah Wright, then lays it on heavy:

Let me get this straight: Obama goes to the Bay Area to an affluent liberal enclave to give a condescending take on the supposed poor fools that he is currently trying to court. This is not just hypocritical, but abjectly stupid. All of Pennsylvania surely is asking today what is so hip and sophisticated about the Trinity Church and Rev. Wright?

This is “the essential Obama,” he says,

a walking paradox between the postmodern hip-Ivy-Leaguer who sneers at middle-class America’s supposed prejudices and parochialism, while at the same time courting an anti-Enlightenment, prejudicial demagogue like Jeremiah Wright.

This dichotomy is also crucial.  O. went for his roots with a wild left-wing flair and found it in a black church.  He was already deracinated (made rootless) by his boyhood experience of serial abandonment by parents, and was ripe for ideological harvest by tenured radicals.  (Same for the wife as regards campus experience, we may presume.)

There he is, deep in the heart of two electoral contingents, snooty liberals and the leftist black church, neither of which win elections.