Obama's messaging was very inviting initially. If he talked down to people, it tended to be after he invited them up and they decided to stay low rather than even try.

He was sanctimoniously upperclassity, but for exactly the reasons why the culture of upperclassness is effective and what you want when you have to run important things: you value skill, reason, temperance in character; all the stuff that helps you succeed when doing complex tasks that are mostly intellectual in nature (which governance is). The only downside is that you also have to motivate people who might have a culture of caring about other things, and they might not like the culture you're displaying.