Obama watch – smell the pandering and watch the foot-shooting and Bush-riffing

First, Sen. Obama, can your Shtick Talk Express™, drop the pretense of the Politics of Change™, and just admit you’re going to opt out of public campaign financing, rather than make these dramatic wailings about the “creaky” system.

You’re part of the problem. Look in the mirror and admit it.

And, if you really think it’s creaky, propose how you would change it.

Meanwhile, you can probably devote some energy to not insulting rural Pennsylvanians.

For a campaign that talks about the disorganization of rival Hillary Clinton, this comment is a doozy:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them,” Obama was quoted as saying by the Huffington Post.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” he said.

Actually, I think it’s a pretty good assessment of people in smaller towns in the Rust Belt.

But, you just don’t say shit like that. It’s clueless.

And, you sure as hell don’t say that while you take a page from George W. Bush’s campaign financing ( substitute “Bundlers” for “Pioneers.”)

Seventy-nine “bundlers,” five of them billionaires, have tapped their personal networks to raise at least $200,000 each. They have helped the campaign recruit more than 27,000 donors to write checks for $2,300, the maximum allowed. Donors who have given more than $200 account for about half of Obama's total haul, which stands at nearly $240 million.

And, as with Bush’s “Pioneers” and “Rangers,” it looks like these “Bundlers” are buying access. (Is that Tony Rezko I hear in the background?)

Among the group are businessmen such as Kenneth Griffin, a famously private 39-year-old billionaire who threw his support behind Obama’s presidential campaign just as he hired a team of lobbyists to urge Congress to preserve a lucrative tax loophole.

A year ago, Griffin invited Obama to speak to employees of his Chicago hedge fund, Citadel Investment Group, and in subsequent months, employees and their families gave the candidate nearly $200,000. Griffin had previously backed Republicans, including Obama’s initial U.S. Senate opponent. …

And there is the director of General Dynamics, the military supplier that has seen profits soar since the onset of the Iraq war and that has benefited from at least one Obama earmark … a request to spend $8 million on a high-explosive technology program for the Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The program got $1.3 million.

Now, it’s true that these “Bundlers” may be less able to buy access than the “Pioneers.” But, will they not get any access?

If you believe that, I’ve got swampland in Arizona to sell you.

And, if Obama really wanted to practice the Politics of Change™, he could have turned down some of this money.