Obama says that people in Pennsylvania are bitter and frustrated about the economy; politicians don’t respond to the economic frustrations; so, the people turn to things like immigration or guns or antipathy to people who are different from them as a way to express their frustrations. John “son of a son of an admiral” McCain, whose family wealth is estimated at about $100 million, calls Obama an “elitist.” Hillary calls him “out of touch.” Obama responds deftly:
I doubt it was planned, but that response almost looked like he was playing a rope-a-dope; fishing in McCain and Clinton before taking their heads off. (If I might mix a few metaphors.)
Meanwhile, Evan Bayh, concern troll, chimes in:
“The far right wing has a very good track record of using things like this relentlessly against our candidates, whether its Al Gore or John Kerry,†Bayh said, “I’m afraid this is the kind of fodder they might use to harm him.â€
Might I suggest that if certain DLC members of the Democratic Party weren’t so busy putting their fingers to the wind and were more concerned with taking members of the aforementioned far right wing and busting them in the chops from time to time instead of cringing in fear of them; the right wingers wouldn’t have such a good track record.
Update John Cole responds to Bayh’s concern trolling (and a lot of other stuff, Cole has a half dozen posts that jump down the virtual throats of the Clinton campaign). Bayh: “I think superdelegates need to weigh this when making their decisions blah blah blah.”
Cole:
I think the super-delegates should consider that Hillary may have killed Vince Foster. Additionally, I think super-delegates should look at the fact that Hillary will gut her own party in her naked pursuit for power. Also, Hillary is a rich liberal elite whose husband fucks other woman. Regular Americans won’t be able to relate to adultery, and it could be used against her in the election by “the far right wing.†By the way, I heard some Republicans talking about someone named Mark Rich. I think the super-delegates should keep that in mind when they make their choice.
On a serious note, I do actually like Evan Bayh, but is it just me, or is he the worst concern troll ever?
Update 2 Mary Beth Schneider and Bill Ruthart have an article on the brouhaha for the Indy Star. Hoosiers seem largely unfazed:
James Anderson, a 60-year-old Ford Motor Co. retiree from Anderson, said he heard Obama’s comments on the news, “and I wasn’t offended at all.”
He’s seen firsthand the disappearance of manufacturing jobs in Indiana, he said, and knows the toll it’s taken on folks.
Initially, he’d supported Clinton, but he said he was turned off by the “misinformation” she spreads. Now, he said, he’ll vote for Obama, “the only one who’s going to represent America.”
Dr. Kathleen Beache, a 44-year-old dentist from Indianapolis, said she’s a Republican who listens daily to conservative talk shows.
She said she read the complete remarks Obama made and didn’t take offense. She does, though, take offense at how Obama is being portrayed.
“They’ve been trying to paint Barack Obama as an arrogant person and hoping that that label sticks,” Beache said. “It’s time they stop that nonsense.”
But Clinton’s shots at Obama resonated with Al Newsom, a 58-year-old Allison Transmission worker who said he decided to vote for Clinton after hearing her talk Saturday.
“I believe her on this, because I’ve listened to Senator Obama before, and he’s really out of touch with the American worker,” Newsom said.
But Wayne Davis, 55, a machine operator at Allison, said he didn’t buy it.
“Senator Obama was a working folk himself, and outside of the realm of campaigning, I think her view would change,” said Davis, who is leaning toward voting for Obama. “I’d like for them to focus more on the issues and less on the other candidate.”
John King, 68, a retired railroad worker in Indianapolis, said, “I think Obama and her have got to keep each other’s names out of their mouths. They need to conduct a nice, orderly Democratic campaign.”
Of course, this is just people listening to the candidates directly. We need to wait until it gets filtered through the media news personalities for 3 to 5 days and they get a chance to hyperventilate about “regular people” for awhile.
No kidding. Evan never reminds me of someone who is a chops buster.
When I read what he said, I agreed. What is the problem?
While I find some of Obamas statements troubling, I agree with his view on this.
Surprisingly, it looks like the folks in Terre Haute agree with him also.
I agree.. that tape of him answering is AWESOME!! Why isn’t the MSM playing this too? Cause they are buying into the “something wrong with him” crowd.
Saying people cling to religion in bad economic times is BAAAAAD.
Saying God wipes out cities with hurricanes because of the gays is just playing to the base, which is just good politics.
I think it was inartful in his choice of words and a bad location. But listening to the whole thing, it’s clear that he’s not only right but willing to speak truth. I only wish he’d said it in Lafayette rather than SF. He’d have had a standing ovation.. like he got in Terre Haute.
I have always sounded out my extended conservative family to get an accurate first pulse of politics.It’s unscientific,but usually has been fairly accurate,because they follow all the major rw media, news sources and pundits,and all come up with mutually similar conclusions.
The summarized wisdom of Obama’s bitterness quote seems to be: ‘Finally the real Obama is coming out. He couldn’t hide what he was like forever’.
Hopefully they are not right.
From my persective with my family it’s all about race and being different leading to a catyclismic overturning of american culture.They’re very fearful of Obama.
I however, feel that Obama is exactly who this country needs at this time in our history,and would bring American values back into Constitutional focus,and feel bad that there is no mutually understandable way to communicate with my family on this issue.
Is this what the whole country is going through?
In the first place, I don’t think Obama is even remotely contemptuous of small towns or the Midwest. But, note the double standard – note the sneering contempt that right wingers routinely express for New York and California and pretty much any place that touches the ocean.
I don’t get how anythign he said was even remotely controversial. When I first read the quote and that it was supposedly bad I didn’t get it and I still don’t get it. When times are bad, politicians keep telling people they’ll make it better, then they sell out to lobbyists and corporations and nothing changes. So they vote based on wedge issues instead. DUH. It’s common fucking sense.
Maybe if Hillary didn’t depend so much on $2000 donors and the beltway elite, she’d get this. maybe if McCain wasn’t an out of touch warmonger more worried about pumping up the GOP base he’d get it too.
Usually i’m pretty good at seeing a statement and seeign when it’s bad or will be taken bad. i didn’t see this at all. What. The. Hell?
Doug, rightwingers aren’t trying to get the votes of the New Yorkers whom they have contempt for.
Obama is. He said these things while raising money in San Fransico.
The statement was stupid. Guns and religion were popular long before the decline in manufacturing.
You couple what he said with his relationship with Wright, and the first thing that I conclude is that his “faith” is nothing more than political cover. He is not a true believer.
That may be allright with the white, educated, rich wing of the Democrat party represented in the comments of this blog and by Kos, etc. But it ain’t gonna fly in November.
Have you guys seen the pictures of Hillary swigging whiskey in Crown Point? See here.
I find her mis-drinking of a shot more offensive than Obama’s offensive statements. ;)
The key word that causes problems for Obama is ‘cling’ ,that people cling to religion and guns and religion;it takes away a person’s free choice by someone else.Obama has person -to-person experience on the streets of Chicago and there people could be said to cling to guns and gangs and religion and dope because of the over all despair caused by economics.
It seems a parallel characterization about what Obama said about small towns in depressed economic areas.But Im not sure Obama would gain by taking that parallel.
I wholeheartedly support Obama but try to be fair,and I think Blacks and many liberals might take issue ,depending on who made the above characterizations, of why Blacks hold certain values.
It’s often an issue of who makes the evaluation( and why )rather than what the evaluation is.
The bottom line still is that Obama, of the three candidates, is by far the best choice for America.Hopefully each candidate will be judged on the whole presentation,and in the end that would mean Obama,imho.
My advice to Obama: go to small towns in PA and meet the people one by one.
I think Blacks and many liberals might take issue ,depending on who made the above characterizations, of why Blacks hold certain values.
Holy crap, not only do I agree with Lou for the first time ever, but I think he has made a profound point, one that I haven’t heard any of the talking heads making.
And I watched a lot of opinion TV this weekend, where “Bittergate” dominated.
I thought Obama handled the questions about this well in the “Compassion Forum” last night.
Then Campbell Brown (isn’t she married to an ex-Bush disinformation official?), a religious broadcaster, and a Bush speechwriter bemoaned that it was just so inadequate and he would have to do better. So now we know that the right wing wants to talk about “bittergate” some more. I’m just saddened that I wasn’t also provided with Pat Buchanan’s or Dick Cheney’s opinion, too.
If Buzzcut is looking for a “true believer”, Obama’s probably as close as it’s going to get. McCain doesn’t appear to be one.
I agree with those who have noted that the “cling…to religion” aspect of the comments is the most potentially damaging. Had he omitted one or both of those words, the comments never would have been reported widely, because they are completely uncontroversial. I think he will be okay in the long run. Obama just can’t win on religion: either he’s a Muslim, or he’s a Christian with a wacko pastor, or he’s a secular type with contempt for “midwestern values” (gawd I hate that term). Evan Bayh can jump off a cliff. He’s lost my support and respect permanently as a result of his cynical water-carrying for a defeated candidate.
If Buzzcut is looking for a “true believerâ€, Obama’s probably as close as it’s going to get.
My issue isn’t necessarily that Obama is not really religious. It is that his religion is faked.
If he were honestly an “unbeliever”, I wouldn’t have a problem with him. Just be honest.
There is no way Obama ,or any other liberal, can fake being Christian. Take his word for it,although he doesnt make it a big deal.
We probably are on thin ice calling Obama liberal,because I have heard more than one conservative refer to McCain as ‘liberal’. The bar is low for liberal status..Obama vs McCain : the November duel of the liberals!
The terms “conservative” and “liberal” no longer have any intrinsic meaning. Deficit-ballooning, military interventionist George W. Bush is “conservative.” Right now, they are basically Republican jargon for “I like him” or “I don’t like him,” respectively.
Dubya is a “compassionate conservative”. Which is a lot more liberal that a “New Democrat”.
I agree, these labels are getting worn, especially with McCain.
That said, there’s nothing conservative about Obama.
In other words, Republicans don’t like him — unsurprising. Or does “conservative” retain some intrinsic meaning that doesn’t fit Obama?
Conservatism theoretically had something to do with small government, a non-interventionist foreign policy, and letting the market work.
Bush has authorized torture; has opted for a war of aggression; and is apparently cool with bailing out Bear Stearns. He flew back from Crawford to inject the federal government into the Schiavo matter. Other than the apparent compassion for some Wall Street types and a brain-dead woman, there isn’t even a whole lot of compassion to go with that non-conservatism. And, yet, he’s still a “conservative.”
Obama’s legislative career from Illinois as well as the Senate shows that he supports liberal legislation. By that definition, he is a liberal.
Check my blog. I like Obama.
His wife though… not so much.
I know, I know, Michelle Obama is not running for President. But is she going to be another Hillary Clinton circa 1993? I think, undoubtedly, yes.
Someone still says that “compassionate conservative” bullshit?
Did you make little quotation marks in the air as you typed that?
You left out that he’s a “reformer with results”, too.
Did you make little quotation marks in the air as you typed that?
Of course. That’s how the quotes around “compassionate conservative” got into my post in the first place.
Dubya also “change[d] the tone in Washington”.
Give me a minute, I can find all his other campaign slogans.
Wasn’t ‘compassionate conservative’ just a euphemism for ‘triangulation’?
Nah, just an empty slogan. Actually, it seems like it was a dog whistle of some sort, but ended up just being an empty slogan.
No, because he’s never really “triangulated” to any degree.
The Medicare Part D deal wasn’t triangulation–it was a calculation that opening up the treasury to the elderly could get him some votes.
No, “compassionate conservative” was just words, aimed at people who respond to packaging rather than content. Like “Clear Skies”, or “No Child Left Behind”, or “Freedom Fries”.