Matthews suggested Obama was never middle class, does not "have that experience that ... most Americans have"

During the 7 p.m. ET hour of MSNBC's June 3 special election coverage, anchor Chris Matthews asked Democratic Leadership Council chairman Harold Ford Jr. if there was "something missing" in Sen. Barack Obama's "biography that people can identify with." Matthews continued: "He's gone from being a poor kid, growing up in Hawaii, in Indonesia, part of his youth, mixed family background, had to struggle, worked with community organizations; went to these incredibly elite schools, Columbia and Harvard Law, making Law Review and all that. He missed the middle part. Most Americans don't know anything about being dirt poor and don't know anything about the Ivy League. They're sort of in this struggling class. The people in the middle worried about paying bills, for whom going to the movies, paying 35, 40 bucks for the whole cost of going to the movies with your wife, is just too much money, OK?" Matthews went on to state: "Does he have that experience that people -- most Americans have? Does he connect on the basic struggling-class level? And I'm not sure he does." But Obama's biography, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Crown, 1995), directly rebuts Matthews' assertion that Obama "missed the middle part."

Matthews himself noted that Obama worked with "community organizations." Indeed, in describing in Dreams from My Father his work as a community organizer in Chicago prior to attending Harvard Law School, Obama wrote that his salary started at "ten thousand dollars the first year, with a two-thousand-dollar travel allowance to buy a car [Page 142]." According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator, Obama's 1985 starting salary translates to $19,964.96 in 2008 dollars, with an additional $3,992 travel allowance. Obama also wrote in the 2004 preface of Dreams from My Father that since the book's initial publication in 1995, "[m]y wife and I bought a house, were blessed with two gorgeous, healthy, and mischievous daughters, and struggled to pay the bills."

Additionally, in his biography of Obama, Obama: From Promise to Power (Amistad, 2007), Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell wrote of Obama's middle-class upbringing:

Beyond his advice not to be loose with his money, Lolo imparted a store of tough-minded, masculine wisdom to young Barry. Amid the widespread privation of Third World Indonesia, Lolo had lived a hard existence, extremely different from the relatively comfortable, middle-class American experience to which Obama and his mother were accustomed. [Page 33]

[...]

Obama's grandparents maneuvered him into Punahou; his grandfather's boss, an alumnus, intervened to have Obama accepted. And Madelyn's job at the bank helped pay the steep tuition. By living in a modest apartment and sending Obama (and eventually Maya) to private school, his grandparents had sacrificed their own prosperity for the sake of Obama and his sister. "We never suffered," Madelyn answered when I asked what specific things were given up to send her grandchildren to Punahou. "As you can see, we live in an apartment instead of a house. ... But I think we could have done the other if we had wanted. But I traveled, you know, and spent money on the kids -- the kids and traveling were priorities. We're not poverty-stricken." [Page 36]

From the 7 p.m. ET hour of MSNBC's June 3 special election coverage:

FORD: The beginning of his speech in New Orleans tonight, he lays out that you will hear a lot of speeches, you'll get a lot of press releases, and you'll get a lot of talk from the Obama campaign that he, John McCain, represents a third term for George Bush. He says that's false. He makes clear that he's a reformer and that can actually implement change. Tim's last point, and I hope the Obama campaign listened closely: You have to identify those three big themes and wrap some real substance -- simple, understandable substance -- but you've got to wrap some substance around that. He has time to do this over the next several months. We ran out of time in Tennessee, and hopefully we'll get another shot at it in the coming years, but he has an unbelievable opportunity, Senator Obama does, over the next five months to make this case to the American people. Not along black lines, white lines, Hispanic lines, Asian lines, Native American lines, but as an American. In his story and his biography, there's not been a story as quintessential as his, a biography that is quintessential as his, running for the presidency, and he has this great opportunity.

MATTHEWS: But isn't there something missing -- isn't there something really missing in his biography that people can identify with? He's gone from being a poor kid, growing up in Hawaii, in Indonesia, part of his youth, mixed family background, had to struggle, worked with community organizations; went to these incredibly elite schools, Columbia and Harvard Law, making Law Review and all that. He missed the middle part. Most Americans don't know anything about being dirt poor and don't know anything about the Ivy League. They're sort of in this struggling class. The people in the middle worried about paying bills, for whom going to the movies, paying 35, 40 bucks for the whole cost of going to the movies with your wife, is just too much money, OK?

FORD: Senator Obama a few years --

MATTHEWS: Does he have that experience that people -- most Americans have? Does he connect on the basic struggling-class level? And I'm not sure he does.

FORD: Before he wrote these two terrific books, he still owed money on his student loans. Barack Obama and his wife understand, his children understand in many, many ways the plight and the reality of an overwhelming majority of Americans. I might add Senator McCain may make this case, but he is married -- and this is no disrespect or slight to his wonderful wife -- but he married into a wonderful beer fortune. The reality is Barack Obama finds himself not only able to relate throughout his political life, but in his formative years, in his early years. And I might add, who in their right mind would not root for their child, does not want their child to go to the very best schools? When you look at how Barack was born, where he was born, the conditions he was born, here's a young man who lived around the world who has not only the -- a global DNA, but lived the world in many ways. And at a time in which America's standing and credibility is questioned in many ways and misunderstood, his candidacy and his presidency, in many ways, will answer many of those questions. And, again, I don't mean to slight senator McCain, but to your question, Chris, just a few years ago, he and Michelle both, Mrs. Obama, still owed on their student loans. So, this is a young man who, although has lived an American life and has been afforded the opportunity to go to some of the great universities and great learning centers in this country, he worked his way there.

MATTHEWS: So it's Saul Alinsky against the beer baron. I have to tell you -- I know, I know --

FORD: No, no, no. Again, I want to say -- it's a fortune, it's a fortune --

MATTHEWS: It's so funny, I never heard it put together he married into a beer fortune and he doesn't know how what it's like to sweat.

FORD: And I don't -- no, no, don't get me wrong. Whatever fortune, this -- her family worked their way also, but understand, we cannot at any moment suggest he doesn't understand middle-class America. He gets it, understands it, lives it, has worked and has tried his hardest as a senator from Illinois to represent and help improve the lives of those. And what I hope he and John McCain will debate about in this campaign is where they want to take the country. And do it well.

MATTHEWS: OK, Harold Ford -- Harold Ford Jr., thanks, that's all the time we have this time.

FORD: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: We'll be back with you later.