. . . The lifestyle puritanism of the upper-middle class left, . . .
I can partially agree. I remember following city council meetings about ten years ago in which a smallish town was considering extending a workplace smoking ban to private clubs with employees. And it did strike me as elitist, as opposed to creating more jobs. But the thing is, it’s just really difficult to create more jobs, especially for an approx. 50,000 population town.
But on the other hand, if First Lady Obama was talking about good middle-of-the-road advice on nutrition and matter-of-factly talking truth to power regarding Agribusiness and the food industry, to me that’s a winning combination. (for example, raising questions about high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oil)*
And, at the end of the day, the political left speaks up for the underdog and challenges entrenched economic interests, at least it does in my book.
* don’t know whether Mrs. Obama took this tack, but even if she did it a little bit, I tend to think it’s better than nothing