by Mark Silva
Sen. John McCain was on the Hardball College Tour this early evening, where a student asked him about a remark that Sen. Barack Obama had made in an interview with a Philadelphia sports radio station.
Obama had spoken about his grandmother acting like “a typical white person” when seeing unknown black men, the student at Villanova reminded McCain, and then asked the senator:
Does McCain consider himself a typical white person?
“May I say first that I thought that Sen. Obama’s speech was an excellent speech, and I think it was well presented,” McCain replied cautiously in the campus appearance with MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. Making reference to the speech on race and unity which Obama had delivered in Philadelphia the same week of the radio interview in question, McCain said: “I think it was an important statement that he had to make at the time, and I think it was good for all of America to have heard it.
“I can’t comment directly as to how I portray myself,” McCain added, getting to the crux of the question, “except to say that I hope that all of us learn over the years the need and the importance of treating everyone in this nation only and solely on the attributes they have and their ability to follow their ambitions and their hopes and dreams as far as they’ll take them.
“I think that this campaign has contributed to that debate and that progress,” McCain said, with another nod to Obama, “and so I applaud him for the statement he made…
“So I’m sorry if I basically ducked the question,” McCain continued, prompting laughter in the audience, “but I want to say that I think Americans, all Americans, want a respectful campaign.. They want that, and they want that very badly…. and I’ll conduct that.’
Is Obama an elitist? Matthews asked McCain.
“No, but I do believe that his statements were elitist,” McCain said of the comments that Obama had made more recently about the bitterness of working class voters.