Experience is Overrated. What About IQ?
Until four years ago, no one had heard of our current Democratic nominee. “Who is Barack Obama?” asked CBS News after he was picked to deliver the keynote address at the Dems’ 2004 confab. “Not exactly a household name.” Four years later, that speech remains his biggest achievement. No landmark legislation bears his name. His claim to fame is his gift of gab.
But Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s newly-minted fame makes Obama, saddled with a resume so thin he pads it with the entry “community organizer,” look like an elder statesman. Governor of one of the nation’s least populous states for a mere two years and the ex-mayor of a municipality that’s home to 7000 souls, Palin is now positioned to be a proverbial heartbeat away from the ability to order ICBMs fired at Russia. (On January 20th McCain, a cancer survivor and hardly the picture of health, will be two years away from the average life expectancy for an American male.)
At least Obama went to law school. Along with a solid background in history, knowledge of the law is essential for a president.
Palin is a total unknown. A McCain adviser admits to The New York Times: “The campaign’s polling on Mr. McCain’s potential running mates was inconclusive on the selection of Ms. Palin–virtually no one had heard of her.”
Welcome to the year of the nobody, when people you’ve never heard of can blog or reality-show or, in the case of the political class, schmooze their way to fame and fortune. My favorite nobody of 2008 was a kid named Efraim Diveroli, the fast-talking 22-year-old president of a two-man arms trading outfit by the name of AEY, Inc. (Speaking of thin resumes, his business partner was a masseur by trade.)
On the strength of a charming smile and the lowest bid, the Pentagon awarded this joker a $300 million federal contract to supply munitions to the U.S. puppet government in Afghanistan. Three hundred million dollars!
“By 2005, when Mr. Diveroli became AEY’s president at age 19, the company was bidding across a spectrum of government agencies and providing paramilitary equipment–weapons, helmets, ballistic vests, bomb suits, batteries and chargers for X-ray machines–for American aid to Pakistan, Bolivia and elsewhere,” reported The Times. Alas, all good things end. Diveroli’s firm sluffed off a bunch of repackaged, outdated and substandard Chinese-made shells from Albania to the Afghans, who knew enough about war materiel to complain to their American masters.
Lest I make myself misunderstood, I’m not claiming that experience is a reliable indicator of performance. The members of George W. Bush’s cabinet had collectively spent more than a century of their lives serving in federal government. That didn’t prevent them from bankrupting the treasury or standing by passively as a hurricane destroyed New Orleans. Nor am I impressed by fancy credentials. As many financial services workers can attest, few employees are more poorly prepared for real-world economics than those with MBAs. Journalism schools produce stenographers, not journalists.
Resume entries aside, history shows that certain personality traits–especially intelligence and open-mindedness–make for better presidents. Also helpful are a variety of life experiences, such as familiarity with other countries and cultures and overcoming tough times.
By most measures, Palin is a weird choice. Like Geena Davis in the 2005 TV series “Commander in Chief,” she could wake up one morning to find that McCain has shuffled off to the great POW camp in the sky. We would probably be in trouble.
As far as we know, Sarah Palin faced her biggest personal challenge a year ago. According to official accounts, she learned that she was pregnant with a child with Down Syndrome. She decided to keep him. It has to be heart-breaking. Still, as a right-wing opponent of abortion rights, however, the decision not to abort had to have been simple to make. Also on the knocked-up front, she and McCain actively attempted to cover up the fact that her 17-year-old daughter has a bun in the oven. Icky, icky. Zero integrity points for sucking up to the Christianist Right.
Palin’s teen daughter intends to carry the child to term–a decision one hopes she was able to make free of pressure from her ambitious mother.
More worrisome is an incurious intellect that dovetails regrettably with Palin’s past as a beauty queen. “Ms. Palin appears to have traveled very little outside the United States,” reported The Times. “In July 2007, she had to get a passport before she visited members of the Alaska National Guard stationed in Kuwait.” Yet Anchorage is a major hub for flights to Japan, Korea and China. She never felt like checking out Canada?
Asked about rumors the Alaska governor was being considered as McCain’s running mate, she told CNBC: “As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”
“Working real hard”? Doesn’t the University of Idaho require its graduates to learn English? Does she know that she isn’t running for VP of Alaska? Or that the VP presides over the Senate? With the nation facing enormous economic, political and military challenges, do we need another numbnut in the White House?
At least Palin knows something many other Republicans don’t. “We are a nation at war,” she told Business Week, “and in many [ways] the reasons for war are fights over energy sources.” Palin has grammar trouble. But she knows why we’re in Iraq.
Two of Palin’s opponents in the 2006 Alaska governor’s race were baffled at Palin’s lack of substance. “She wouldn’t have articulated one coherent policy and people would just be fawning all over her,” Republican-Independent Andrew Halcro told The Times. “[Democratic candidate Tony Knowles] and I looked at each other and it was, like, this isn’t about policy or Alaska issues, this is about people’s most basic instincts: ‘I like you, and you make me feel good.'”
God bless America. We’re going to need all the help we can get.
COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL
51 Comments.
I wonder if Palin's ever said that all she wants is world peace.
Seriously, this woman scares me. Her membership in the NRA is the least of my worries. She's rabidly anti-choice (even in the case of rape or incest) and pro-death penalty; and I'm curious about her stance on birth control, as she supports abstinence-only education. Considering she believes that both evolution and creationism should be taught in schools, it's possible she's as anti-science as the current administration.
Also on the knocked-up front, she and McCain actively attempted to cover up the fact that her 17-year-old daughter has a bun in the oven. Icky, icky. Zero integrity points for sucking up to the Christianist Right.
I'm giving her a pass on that one, in the hope that she did that to protect her daughter. Like John Edward's affair, this is a family matter, not fodder for the press or the public.
Anyway, I suppose my being female means I have to vote Republican, because I'm too dumb to figure out what a cynical, bullshit ploy this is.
The folksy "common person" thing works over and over and over and over again (get it? and..and..and…eh, never mind).
We are in trouble. The news media treats this as a reasonable proposition, and not just a real life travesty ripe for Lifetime to make a documentary. I bet they've already started.
"Lifetime, Television for morons…"
Part of me wants to see just how bad this is going to get.
She's Alaskan, and she's never even been to Canada?
Also: one million lulz at the entirety of the 'working real hard' quote. It's not even coherent English. Only a simian man-child would go to a job interview and tell their potential employer "I'm used to being very productive and working real hard." ;_;
Here's a gem from a questionnaire she filled out when she ran for governor in '06:
11. Are you offended by the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I'll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.
That kind of industrial-strength stupid could be expected from your typical backwoods redneck, but coming from a VP candidate, it borders on terrifying.
When I heard that Palin's daughter was knocked up, I smiled. I smiled that same all-knowing, smug smile that Spongebob wore when he realised that Squidward loves Krabby Patties. Dorme bene
Wow, Jason, got a link? Industrial-strength stupid…that's GREAT!
Here, aggie dude: http://thestoneoftear.blogspot.com/2008/09/are-you-convinced-about-sarah-palin-yet.html
The survey she did can be found here.
Her answers are insane. Check out this one:
12. In relationship to families, what are your top three priorities if elected governor?
Sarah Palin: 1) Creating an atmosphere where parents feel welcome to choose the venues of education for their children; 2) Preserving the definition of “marriage” as defined in our constitution, and 3) Cracking down on the things that harm family life: gangs, drug use, and infringement of our liberties including attacks on our 2nd Amendment rights.
Yes, in a somewhat generic question about families, she not only mentions her opposition to gay marriage but somehow brings up guns. She's pandering to be sure, but she'll still support those issues.
Some people have said that McCain is trying to attract Clinton supporters who have vowed not to vote for Obama out of spite, but I don't think there are really that many people like that out there. Instead I think he's trying to appeal to middle-class parents who might not even think of themselves as being too conservative but still don't like those weird liberals and their frightening ideas. People like that might vote for someone who seems to be like them. Everything about Palin, on the surface at least, just screams that she's a "normal" person and not one of those elitists who Republicans have tried so hard to vilify.
Of course, those family people might decide that a woman with a new baby shouldn't be involved with something like this. It might be sexist, but I've already heard it from several people.
I'm not sure how she'll affect Obama and Biden. I've already heard people say she's more experienced than Obama because she's a governor instead of just a senator. And conservatives have declared that Biden is an "attack dog," so if he trounces her in a debate they can portray him as attacking a defenseless woman.
Anyway, it's too early to tell if Palin will have a positive or negative effect on McCain. I can see why he chose her, but it could (and hopefully will) backfire.
Ted ol' buddie, was I right or what? The repukes don't want to win this one. If they do they get to clean up after bush's elephant turd! Huckabee,Huckabee,Huckabee!!!
The only one that would want this mess is someone who has something to prove. Say…a black man, or, a woman?
Come to Michigan, americas water wonderland. You will see exactly what can be accomplished after a repukenican craps on the state and a demicratic minority gets elected, with a republican congress. Check out our employment rate, as the politicians fight over whom can run the state best.
Aggie,
I want Obama to win as much as you lefties, but McSame did do him one better by picking Palin. When Barrack could have picked a regular Joe as running mate, the best he could muster was Biden? Ted's darling, Edwards, would have been much more credible as "common folk", incest and all. Palin looks like a regular Jane, out-of-wedlock pregnancies and all. I'll repeat what I wrote once before: the Democratic party (especially its Ivory Tower constituency) needs to go back to its populist roots and embrace Joe-sixpack, instead of sneerings at him.
Luckily, I don't think the choice of running mate is that important. I just wish Barack Obama stopped talking nonsense about military commitments in the Middle East and went back to a more dovish discourse.
Jason,
Shame on Palin for not knowing the Pledge of Allegiance is a monstrous, proto-fascist, 19th century oath of loyalty to the State.
Once again, is it sexist to use the term "trophy Veep"?
But seriously, within five minutes of first hearing her (SHRILL, forget Hillary) voice, I heard her say NUKULAR! After a few false starts and red herrings (I could have sworn it was McCain), the Antichrist has arrived. The christianists seem to think the next step is Russia invading Israel. Now, why would THAT happen?!? I'll bet she couldn't find Iran on a map. I'd feel much better with Laura Bush second in line.
DailyKOS made a good case that Palin's Down baby is actually her daughter's, but the article is no longer there. On top of that, the daughter's pregged out (again). Very odd.
"Resume entries aside, history shows that certain personality traits–especially intelligence and open-mindedness–make for better presidents. Also helpful are a variety of life experiences, such as familiarity with other countries and cultures and overcoming tough times."
Sounds like Obama.
I am curious as to what you consider landmark legilsation
Incitatus,
I don't want an average Joe to be president. I want the president to be far far above average.
I like Obama's pick, and think that the two of them can put together a highly competent administration that will govern well.
McCain's VP pick is the first pick of his administration, and if it continued on that path, it would be horrendous. As horrendous as the past 28 years where every federal government agency has been populated with ideological hacks so far down that, for example, the FDA doesn't even understand the structure of the food system it tries to regulate.
This is NOT a game show where average joe gets to be president of the United States. Getting things right matters, and Sarah Palin can't even get the basics of understanding the world around her right. I'm not going to tuck tail and act like she's qualified to be president. This is not even a reasonable conversation.
WHO AM I? WHY AM I HERE?
My conspiratorial side tells me that Palin is the Bushies REAL choice for the Presidency. McCain is a proxy and will probably won't finish the first 6 month of his term. He'll either die or be too sick to serve, then bang, Palin becomes President. BTW, She is a total Messianic Christian. Need Proof?? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html Dorme bene
If it's any consolation, Palin wouldn't actually be making decisions. Like Bush, she'd just be reading the teleprompter and getting her picture taken in staged scenes. I reckon she'd have the same "handlers" as Bush, too.
And conservatives have declared that Biden is an "attack dog," so if he trounces her in a debate they can portray him as attacking a defenseless woman.
Considering she's said that Hillary needed to stop whining and suck it up, she damned well better be able to stand up to Biden's attacks.
Ted's darling, Edwards, would have been much more credible as "common folk", incest and all.
I'm sorry. What?
I can't see that as a good thing, anonymous one. The fact remains that the odds of her becoming president due to John McCain's death within the first 4 years is extremely high, and she has proven to be a complete lunatic across the board. That scares me.
I'd like to think McCain won't win, and Palin won't become the president, but I'm just too damn negative these days to believe that won't happen. God knows her pundit shield is super-fortified.
Any questions you have about this woman's judgement should be answered in what appear to be undisputed but strange facts about the birth of her alleged son, Trig.
What appears undisputed: she reported her water broke at a conference in Texas, and even though she was 44 and the baby was known to have Down syndrome which makes the pregnancy doubly high risk, she (1) gives her scheduled speech anyway, (2) refuses to go to the hospital in Texas (even though, had she gone to a hospital, her condition would have likely forced her to stay), (3) flies back to Anchorage (even though airlines have strict rules about flying after 36 of pregnancy without a physician's approval), (4) instead of going to the much better-equipped hospital in Anchorage, she drives 45 minutes to Mat-Su Hospital in Palmer to deliver her baby, more than 8 hours after her water broke in a high-risk pregnancy.
As I said, no one seems to dispute this chain of events. Now the salacious explanation is that she was faking pregnancy to cover for her daughter. There would need to be more evidence to bear this out, but were such evidence to surface, I think it's safe to say that would disqualify her as VP.
But let's assume SP was truly pregnant with Trig. Could the above behavior be seen as anything but reckless, bordering on insane? Is this a person who should be a heartbeat away from controlling the world's largest nuclear arsenal?
Ted, this column is one of the scariest things I've read all year. My first reaction to McCain's choice was genuine amusement – it was nice to finally see a potentially debilitating blunder in a presidential campaign not committed by a democrat. Then reality set in, and I realized this person might be president sometime in the near future. McCain scares me, but I hope he has some excellent healthcare.
I'm going with the theory that the Republicans released the baby story deliberately.
McCain picked Palin for one reason and one reason only; to attract enough upset Hillary voters to tilt the race in his favor. And you know what? It just might work! But than what?
Let's face it, we really have to bring up the age issue now. The fact of the matter is that we will most likely die while in office leaving us with a president who's less experienced than the guy McCain was poking fun at for being inexperienced.
A choice like this really spotlights The Republican nominee's incompetence and short sightedness in that he cares more about the next 2 months than he does about the next 4 years.
Maura,
I meant infidelity, of course. Damn fingers…
Ted — You don't (or didn't) need a passport to go to Canada.
Jeez.
Anyway, the elections (and the presidency) since at least Kennedy have been all style and no substance. Why is anyone surprised?
Don't you guys think they focus group test all of these decisions?
Why is it hard to believe that all of the Bush voters from 2004 will go for this lady?
This was the best decision McCain has ever made, and it makes me so happy, because it brings us one step closer the collapse this country needs in order to make the reforms necessary to bring us up to the quality of life of Europe.
Until that happens, the revolutionary war was pointless.
incitatus,
Thanks. I was hoping that was the case. (I usually blame the keyboard, not my fingers.)
As I said, no one seems to dispute this chain of events. Now the salacious explanation is that she was faking pregnancy to cover for her daughter. There would need to be more evidence to bear this out, but were such evidence to surface, I think it's safe to say that would disqualify her as VP.
The baby is 4 months old. Her daughter is 5 months pregnant. So I think we can rule that out. Even if it were true, I don't really care. I do, however, have to wonder about a woman who's already had 4 kids and doesn't immediately go to the hospital when her water breaks. That shows either extreme arrogance or complete stupidity.
At least Barack is a lawyer? That's great logic. Where I'm from all that takes is an extra 20K tuition and a desire to put off work for a few years. I guess Barrack would have gone to Harvard if he wasn't black? Unfortunately for him, that is a valid question.
On some level every woman in the country saw the chauvinist democrats screw their own. Keep making fun of her and see what happens.
Can't wait to what happens to Biden. He better debate real hard.
Angelo, we can all have a European standard of living, just reduce the world population to 2 billion.We would all have to work of course.
Until 3 minutes ago, I NEVER heard of Ted Rall. And after reading just a few lines, I now understand why.
Like most of the Obama supporters in the media, they're far from being "fair and balanced" in their coverage. And this is why the liberal television media (ABC, CBS, NBC)and newspapers ( New York Times, Rocky Mountain News, etc.) have lost their viewers and readers.
It would be nice if they would go back to the "objective" reporting standards that was once our media and quit trying to promote only those that they think we should elect.
You people are embarrassing yourselves.
It is naive to say Obama is saddled with a resume so thin he pads it with the entry "community organizer". "Community Organizing" was pioneered in Chicago's old stockyards neighborhood by the soberly realistic, unabashedly radical Saul Alinsky. Community organization is a social work discipline along with case work and group work.
How about a little research? U.S. citizens do not need a passport for entry into Canada unless they're flying there. Can we assume that you're not very bright because you got that fact wrong? No, but those in glass houses …
From the U.S. Embassy in Canada website:
" Required Documents
When entering Canada from the United States, U.S. citizens must show either a U.S. passport or other proof of U.S. citizenship – such as an original or certified birth certificate together with photo identification. U.S. citizens entering Canada from a third country must have a valid passport."
A drivers license won't work, because you don't have to be a U.S. citizen to have one. How many people carry folded copies of their birth certificates in their purses? Not many.
There's no evidence that Palin ever visited Canada…even as Governor of a state with a long border with the Great White North.
I get stuff wrong–but not this time, it seems.
How lovely, the trolls are out in full force today.
This column is currently no. 1 on Yahoo! News's most viewed news stories list.
What's with the community organizer bashing. These people are out there every day rescuing drug addicts and doing the work the government is too lazy or apathetic to do. They played a huge role in helping in post-Katrina
"responding to hundreds of service calls, assisting local officials in evacuation plans, aiding evacuees without transportation, coordinating shelters and opening new ones, providing food, essential services, and financial aid to those in most need. "
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-wallis/palin-owes-some-good-peop_b_124198.html
Seems to me that partisan politics has lead to disparaging a class of people that can only be described as heroes, heroes who do their work for little pay and no political authority.
I'd expect that from Republican swine, after all, if you aren't a Republican, then anything you do and are is ipso facto insignificant and/or reprehensible, but from you Ted, as a populist, I would expect more respect for people who help the disadvantaged when the government fails them.
On some level every woman in the country saw the chauvinist democrats screw their own. Keep making fun of her and see what happens.
And that would be what? I don't think anyone's just making fun of her. She's too frakking dangerous to make fun of.
dalelloyd, your points about community organizing are well taken, but you're being kind in calling Palin naive. She's snide, condescending and cynical. She's an overgrown mean girl.
This column is currently no. 1 on Yahoo! News's most viewed news stories list.
Aww, Ted. Miss Hello Kitty must be proud. So am I.
I wonder why people mock Obama's community organizing activites a=hwich were neritorious, and then ignore his time in the state Senate, and the legislation he's worked on their and Federally?
Ted, I really like your article. However, I would like to mention one thing regarding the comment below:
"We are a nation at war," she told Business Week, "and in many [ways] the reasons for war are fights over energy sources." Palin has grammar trouble.
I think was she meant by "many," was many wars. In which case her sentence would be grammatically correct.
Keep up the great work!
we can all have a European standard of living, just reduce the world population to 2 billion.
Or just cut military spending in half…
Writing national policy that affects the entire country, and foreign policy is ALOT more like presidential experience than running one of the smallest states in the union.
She never commanded the national guard.
stupid talking heads. Stop repeating repug talking points.
Obama's first act as president should be regualting the shit out of the news. There should be stricter penalties for creating false impressions than for saying "fuck".
Allowing corporations to feed lies to the dumb masses is NOT NOT NOT free speech.
Hey: Can I… I mean, MAY I join this snarky, ultra-elitist club…? My IQ is 126….
126 is about 5 points too low, supremalex, sorry, you did not score high enough on an insignificant and arbitrary standardized test….
Having to show a passport to enter Canada is quite recent. If you visited Canada more than about five years ago (I forget exactly how long) you didn't need one. At one time you didn't even need an I.D. to get into Canada, though you might have trouble getting back into the U.S. I grew up in a border town and it still seems strange to me to be making such a fuss over crossing the border.
Antipas– Balanced? Where did you ever get the idea that columnists and political cartoonists were supposed to be balanced? If you follow Ted's work for a while you'll find he doesn't think too highly of Obama, either, though he prefers him to McCain. I feel the same. I'd be a poor excuse for a liberal if I didn't. By the way, the "liberal media" trope is sooooo 1970s.
Jana C.H.
Seattle
Old Italian Political Saying: The conductor changes, the music remains the same.
and you wonder why intellectual elitism has become a nasty word?
i have traveled to canada w/o a passport…didn't realize it was a sign i was qualified/unqualified for the vp position. requirements have changed since 9/11
you are getting a lot more hits because of interest in sarah palin not interest in your thoughts. people are reading everything out there.
so you have an underqualified person on both sides and you're saying he is the better choice because he is a lawyer…
Ted
I too wonder what any rational person could have against community organizers.
I mean, helping the poor and not making a lot of money for it ($10k per year, according to the CNN documentary on Obama which aired last night, plus $2K one time for a car) are obviously notions antithetical to Republicans who'd rather see the poor just die off, but I'm talking about rational people.
I don't see why this is worthy of your scorn.
I think I get the subtext of this community organizer thing:
"It is fair to concede that Governor Palin has had little time to develop. She herself can hardly know, yet, what is best and what is worst about her political character. But arming their well-placed nominee with the hunting license of the innocent and the persecuted, the McCain team took advantage of her first night before the nation to get in a low hit at Barack Obama. "I guess," they had her say, "a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities." The injury was none the subtler for being a slander of omission. With those two words, community organizer, they zeroed out Obama's eight years as state senator in Illinois.
But there was more to it than that. Why did her words send the Republican crowd into an ecstasy of hoots and raucous laughter? For them, "community organizer" is code for rabble-rouser. The phrase, at one stroke, took down Obama from the legitimate world of Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell and put him back where they think he belongs, down there with the street scrappers and the demagogues, Sonny Carson, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson in the early days, all those hustlers. The idea of Obama as hustler had been tried earlier and with impunity by David Brooks, in a column that called him Fast Eddie Obama, after Fast Eddie Felson, the character played by Paul Newman in The Hustler. "
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/the-double-standard-and-o_b_124012.html
So waddaya say Ted? Race thing?
I admire community organizers. But it's hardly a major resume entry for an aspiring president. It's telling that Obama has to rely on it so much.
Ted,
While I think that it is not a MAJOR resume entry, I think it's the type of experience that our leaders should have. McCain talks so much about being a maverick, but in reality he just always did what was expected of him, from start to finish.
Furthermore, someone who's worked at the community level is going to be more grounded. The fact that Sarah Palin gets away with mocking it, when it's off limits to mock her Miss Congeniality shit is absurd.
"But it's hardly a major resume entry for an aspiring president. It's telling that Obama has to rely on it so much."
Thanks for answering, Ted. I think personally it depends on what you expect from a president.
Lately, what kind of pre-political experience have we had in presidents? an ex-lawyer, military/CIA men, a (failed) captain of industry, a 3rd rate actor, a peanut farmer…
Some of these things seem relevant to politics – an actor can deliver lines, a lawyer can recognize when he's within the law, a military/CIA guy knows abotu spying and organized violence, a peanut farmer might have insight into how agriculture can be improved, and the captain of industry will know how to disprove Reaganomics by fucking up the country (that was the plan, right?).
What would a community organizer bring to the table?
Well he has to know how to motivate people to help themselves, he has to organize them, he has to know how to get grassroots movements going, he has to know how to defeat governmental stonewalling. He has to know who needs help. That's just in general.
If you listen to O's detractors, seems to me it's mostly they who rely on that to summarize his experience. He just mentions it as a big part of his political awakening, a time of personal significance wherein he came to see the underbelly of America and the underclass that She keeps under her rug. And then he goes on to excel at law school, enters politics, becomes a state senator for 8 years, fed for 4, and so forth. Which he also mentions. And he does have a passel of legislation under his belt.
So to me, the organizer thing is proof of integrity, and shows that, as an unusually young man, he did a gritty, thankless job on the mean streets of Chicago that made him more in touch with working/poor America than some guy who finishes school and goes to work for a corporation, or marries a debutante and buys many houses, or maybe gets a degree in PoliSci and thinks he's a socialist.
Not many politicians have that kind of street cred.
Now, if he had that street cred in Appalachia, he'd be set, but it seems some broke Appalachians have a hard time identifying with broke Chicagoans. Eh well…