That is pretty interesting.

A man that grew up below middle class went to a traditionally black college and got a degree in mathematics doesn't understand the middle class because he went on to be a successful CEO?

Obama is a man of the people.. growing up in Indonesia and Hawaii then going to Harvard and graduating with a degree in constitutional law, but he understands the middle class?


You are correct. There is a difference.

Obama may understand the middle class.

Cain knows what it is like growing up below middle class in Atlanta during the 50s and 60s.

I will take a man that lived the life over a guy that pretends he has some understanding of the life and never lived it.

He certainly can be seen as a role model for starting out working class (although it was pretty high status and military, opening up a pretty quick path for him). But many people have become management material and it doesnt make them necessarily the best people to understand and represent the COLLECTIVE.

I dont much care what people do in their childhod because that is largely the product of their PARENTS hard work and choices , moreso than their own. BUt speaking in their adult lives, their choices and their perceptions say alot.

Obama worked hard to go to law school (scholarships, not two hard working parents salaries) and even then he remained 'in the trenches' of struggling communities and middle to lower class projects. He had the option to hobnob with lawyers, which he did by profession but he still KEPT the foot with the 'regular' people by choice. He speaks(and I believe him) about the reality of how people struggle, and how there are still obstacles to be overcome systematically.

Cain, on the other hand, strikes me as the young man who was able to benefit from civil rights activitsts efforts to enforce giving opportunity to minorities. HE got in with the right interest in the military world. Those three things (civil rights, his good choice of major , and his military reference/affiliation) put him on a pretty fast track to not have to 'struggle' the majority of the rest of his life. I think he is a bit delusional to have grown up seeing his parents struggle and his community in the shape it was in and then grow up to make the types of statements he does about someone wanting someone elses 'cadillac', or people being too brainwashed to vote conservative , or not trusting muslims, or any of the other terribly bigoted views he expresses that he should have learned to abhor having been in a community that was itself the subject of such harsh views itself. THat he instead grew up to apparently become a man to choose those philosophies and turn his back on the realities of those who struggle, is concern for me. It makes me feel his loyalty is to those he perceives as having rewarded him for being so hard working and exceptional, compared to all those who are struggling and must therefore not work hard at all.

So you are going to pretend those people don't exist? We all know that is a lie. Now are all people in those positions like that? No. But I have seen first hand the attitude that people think others "owe" them something. I have even seen it in these forums to a lesser extent.

I also wouldn't consider the people who struggle "the middle class". In my mind if you are living pay check to pay check and struggling you are not middle class. If you are then you making poor purchasing decisions. (this excludes people who lost jobs due to recession, I am talking the other 91%)

"The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economicaly between the working class and upper class."

Many working class people try to claim themselves as "middle class"