This passage from remarks Obama made at a fundraising dinner is suddenly the talk of the campaign and will be getting a lot of play for quite a while:
You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Oh dear. It sounds like a bad dinner party riff.
You couldn't get a passage more expressive of Obama's biggest weakness as a candidate. Not his race, or his past, but the perception that he thinks he knows better than you.
(And where did he make it? San Francisco, California, home of the snooty liberal elite. Nice one Barack!)
from swimming freestyle:
"This video is exactly how Obama should have raised the issue: In the environment these voters live and with an appropriate anger. Rural working class voters have gotten the shaft. They have every right to be frustrated and even bitter about what's happened to them.
Obama now finds himself having to address the issue defensively, Unfortunately, the issue will now likely be obscured by the hysterical anti-Obama rants by the Clintons and McCains. Obama gave them that gift when he spoke in San Francisco last weekend."
http://swimmingfreestyle.typepad.com
Posted by: Jay McDonough | April 12, 2008 at 06:39 PM
Looks to me like much ado about nothing. He didn't say anything that's not true. Nor is it condescending or "snobby" to recognize why many of the downtrodden are bitter or have lost faith in government.
Posted by: Larry | April 13, 2008 at 03:51 AM
Nice comment, very nice info!!!
Posted by: m@ler.ru | April 13, 2008 at 03:54 PM