The High Rise of the First Metropolitan Candidate

[FVZA_Colonel]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302480.html

The High Rise of the First Metropolitan Candidate
By Alec MacGillis

Republicans, looking to frame Sen. Barack Obama as a candidate outside the mainstream, recently settled on a new tack: deriding him as an out of touch and corrupt urbanite.

At the GOP convention last month, Rudy Giuliani -- the former mayor of quite a large city -- chided the Democratic nominee for minimizing Sarah Palin's experience as mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska: "I'm sorry that Barack Obama feels that her home town isn't cosmopolitan enough." The rest of Sen. John McCain's campaign hammered Obama as a product of the "Chicago political machine." And two weeks ago, Palin hailed "pro-America" small towns at a stop in North Carolina.

Many Obama partisans detected a vague racial appeal in the anti-urban framing. But the attacks also highlighted an overlooked aspect of the Illinois senator's rise: that in a country forever in thrall to its frontier and small-town heritage, he is the rare White House contender who really is a creature of the big city.

This raises two questions: Is Obama's ascent a further sign -- on top of volatile gas prices, plummeting home values in the exurbs and recent population upticks even in Baltimore and Newark -- that our cities are back and that the country is making peace with its non-agrarian side? And would a big-city president address as never before the problems of our urban cores -- blighted housing, shoddy public transit, dismal schools?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I sure hope he does

That agrarian ideal that America dreams about really died in the 1920s during the agricultural depression that began then. We've been basically an urban society ever since, especially after WWII. I sincerely hope that the problems of urban areas are strongly addressed by President Obama.