Harkin: Southern senator described Obama as ‘exotic’

President Obama was described as “exotic” by one senator from a Southern state during a closed-door meeting, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) claimed Wednesday.

Harkin said the remark was made at a private event attended by nearly the entire Senate on filibuster reform.

{mosads}“I’m not naming any names, but one senator got up from a Southern state and said, ‘Well, you’ve got to understand that to my people down here, Obama seems like he’s exotic,’ ” Harkin told the Des Moines Register’s editorial board on Wednesday. “That he’s just exotic, he doesn’t share our values.”

Harkin spoke in response to a question about polarization in Congress. He said the Congress hadn’t been this polarized since the Civil War.