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oops. how bad did Obama mess up?
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| josh4 |
| quote: | 12 reasons 'bitter' is bad for Obama
By: Mike Allen
April 12, 2008 06:38 PM EST
A Clinton comeback was looking far-fetched. But operatives in both parties were buzzing about that possibility Saturday following the revelation that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told wealthy San Franciscans that small-town Pennsylvanians and Midwesterners “cling to guns or religion” because they are “bitter” about their economic status.
Obama at first dug in on that contention Friday after audio of the private fundraiser was posted by The Huffington Post. Altering course, on Saturday in Muncie, Ind., he conceded that he “didn’t say it as well as I should have.” And he told the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal that “obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that. ... The underlying truth of what I said remains, which is simply that people who have seen their way of life upended because of economic distress are frustrated and rightfully so."
Here is what he said April 6, referring to people living in areas hit by job losses: “[I]t’s not surprising, then, that 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.”
The Obama campaign contends that coverage of the San Francisco remarks is overheated and distorted. One aide said that “any logical analysis” would make it obvious that the brouhaha will not “change the pledged delegate count” — the key to the Democratic presidential nomination.
In fact, this is a potential turning point for Obama’s campaign — an episode that could be even more damaging than the attention to remarks by his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, since this time the controversial words came out of his own mouth.
Here are a dozen reasons why:
1. It lets Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) off the mat at a time when even some of her top supporters had begun to despair about her prospects. Clinton hit back hard on the campaign trail Saturday. And her campaign held a conference call where former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Pittsburgh native, described Obama’s remarks as “condescending and disappointing” and “undercutting his message of hope.”
2. If you are going to say something that makes you sound like a clueless liberal, don’t say it in San Francisco. Obama’s views might have been received very differently if he had expressed them in public to Pennsylvania voters, saying he understood and could alleviate their frustrations.
3. Some people actually use guns to hunt — not to compensate for a salary that’s less than a U.S. senator’s.
4. Some people cling to religion not because they are bitter but because they believe it, and because faith in God gives them purpose and comfort.
5. Some hard-working Americans find it insulting when rich elites explain away things dear to their hearts as desperation. It would be like a white politician telling blacks they cling to charismatic churches to compensate for their plight. And it vindicates centrist Democrats who have been arguing for a decade that their party has allowed itself to look culturally out of touch with the American mainstream.
6. It provides a handy excuse for people who were looking for a reason not to vote for Obama but don’t want to think of themselves as bigoted. It hurts Obama especially with the former Reagan Democrats, the culturally conservative, blue-collar workers who could be a promising voter group for him. It also antagonizes people who were concerned about his minister but might have given him the benefit of the doubt after his eloquent speech on race.
7. It gives the Clinton campaign new arguments for trying to recruit superdelegates, the Democratic elected officials and other insiders who get a vote on the nomination. A moderate politician from a swing district, for example, might not want to have to explain support for a candidate who is being hammered as a liberal. And Clinton’s agents can claim that for all the talk of her being divisive, Obama has provided plenty of fodder to energize Republicans.
8. It helps Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) frame a potential race against Obama, even though both of them have found support among independents. Now Republicans have a simple, easily repeated line of attack to use against Obama as an out-of-touch snob, as they had with Sen. John F. Kerry after he blundered by commenting about military funding, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”
9. The comments play directly into an already-established narrative about his candidacy. Clinton supporters have been arguing that Obama has limited appeal beyond upscale Democrats — the so-called latte liberals. You can’t win red states if people there don’t like you. “Elites need to understand that middle-class Americans view values and culture as more important than mere trickery,” said Paul Begala, a Clinton backer. “Democrats have to respect their values and reflect their values, not condescend to them as if they were children who’ve been bamboozled.”
10. The timing is terrible. With the Pennsylvania primary nine days off, late-deciding voters are starting to tune in. Obama and Clinton are scheduled to appear separately on CNN on Sunday for a forum on, of all topics, faith and values. And ABC News is staging a Clinton-Obama debate in Philadelphia on Wednesday. So Clinton has the maximum opportunity to keep a spotlight on the issue. Besides sex, little drives the news and opinion industry more than race, religion, culture and class. So as far as chances the chattering-class will perpetuate the issue, Obama has hit the jackpot.
11. The story did not have its roots in right-wing or conservative circles. It was published — and aggressively promoted — by The Huffington Post, a liberally oriented organization that was Obama’s outlet of choice when he wanted to release a personal statement distancing himself from some comments by the Rev. Wright.
12. It undermines Democratic congressional candidates who had thought that Obama would make a stronger top for the ticket than Clinton. Already, Republican House candidates are challenging their Democratic opponents to renounce or embrace Obama’s remarks. Ken Spain, press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said: “There is a myth being perpetuated by Democrats and even some in the media that an Obama candidacy would somehow be better for their chances down ballot. But we don’t believe that is the case.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9561.html |
I agree with the contention that no matter where you spin this, it doesn't change the current delegate count. But stepping back looking at this a minute, it doesn't look good. This guy had finally started to swing back from the whole Wright thing, Clinton was increasingly loosing steam, and its certainly going to play into his opponents hands to paint him as an elitist. Could the fact that he himself said it be worse for him than Wright? |
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| Kapedan |
Is anyone else tired of seeing both Clinton and Obama bitch at each other? How low can this nation get with the choices of candidate that we have?
Does it really matter who gets in? They all share the same political philosophy. |
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| Magnetonium |
So ... I guess we can rest assured that McCain will be teh president ... he will have plenty weapons to use against whomever wins the democratic nomination :stongue: |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| Let's stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question: was he wrong? |
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| Lira |
| quote: | | Some people cling to religion not because they are bitter but because they believe it, and because faith in God gives them purpose and comfort. |
Without which, they'd just be sad and bitter :toothless |
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| pmoisse |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Let's stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question: was he wrong? |
+1
Good point. At this point, bull politics have taken the spotlight away form an honest and real point. Are small/medium town blue collar types bitter at the current state of affairs? Yes/no?
Much in the same way as his speech on race, this asks a really tough question that can't really be asked in a nice way as far as the 24 hour news soundbite / pundit crowd goes.
I think if he could dance his way out of the race issue, he can work his way out of this one too (though I was somewhat sad to see that he released a statement saying that "bitter" was the wrong choice of words or something to that effect - pretty much backpedaling on an otherwise honest statement) |
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| Zild |
I don't understand why he couldn't of said they were bitter because of the current state of our economy and foreign relations. What I don't understand is then going on to say that makes them cling to religions or guns. WTF? Isn't this guy supposed to be more intelligent than Bush?
Aww who gives a anyway. Pick the puppet on the left or the puppet on the right. |
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| jerZ07002 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Let's stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question: was he wrong? |
i personally don't think he's right. you will be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks americans have a right to guns because they are economically disadvantaged. the main argument is based on the constitution and the right of personal defense.
I personally agree with what clinton said,
| quote: | from CCN article
"Sen. Obama's remarks are elitist and out of touch. They are not reflective of values and beliefs of Americans, certainly not the Americans I know, not the Americans I grew up with, not the Americans I lived with in Arkansas or represent in New York," the senator from New York said.
She said Americans who believe in the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, "believe it's a matter of constitutional right." And she said "Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith."
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however, much of this guys appeal is that he doesn't make these sort of mistakes. if he makes these mistakes then he becomes no different than other politicians. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Let's stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question: was he wrong? |
if you have to spin it, spin away...just know that you're spinning.
of course it was a mistake. why would he have apologized for it?
that apology was a slap in the face as well. it was like "i'm sorry youre too stupid understand what i was saying"
and it wasn't a rookie mistake either. the man and his wife are died-in-the-wool liberal elitists.
“We’re dealing tonight with a classic Kinseyian ‘gaffe,’ where a candidate says what he means and then is forced to account for it.” |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by pmoisse
Much in the same way as his speech on race, this asks a really tough question that can't really be asked in a nice way as far as the 24 hour news soundbite / pundit crowd goes. |
but thats asking the question though.
you can't have the man both ways. not as the President of my country anyways.
this is the same man that made that speech, that accused rural voters of irrational xenophobia, religiosity and gun ownership in front of rich white liberal elitists.
he's a fraud that people project their utopian ideals upon because of who he says he is in rhetoric. we're beginning to see the real man now. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | I still believe that by August, Obama, the half-term rookie Senator, will have become the second George McGovern. Cf. his latest declaration to the Marin County faithful (coming on the heels of the crazy anti-Semitic rant of Rev. Eric Lee, a prominent LA Obama supporter):
"You go into 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."
Let us count the ways that this is a disastrous declaration:
1. “Nothing’s replaced them”? As someone who lives in a small rural town that saw a lot of closed plants and farm depression in the 1980s, a lot has “replaced them”—explaining why for much of the last decade the national unemployment rate has been below 5%.
2. “They”. This evokes Michelle’s similar “they” (as in the “they” who raised the proverbial bar on the Obamas), and likewise suggests both hostility and a certain us/they contempt for a slice of America that the Obamas apparently know very little about—but for the first time in their lives are rapidly discovering.
3. “They cling to guns or religion”. This is revealing for two reasons: one, Obama has been trying to finesse his position on guns to appeal precisely to gun owners and thus we start to see that his repositioning is cynical to the core; two, “cling to religion?” No rural Pennsylvanian clings to religion more than Obama himself, who for 20 years sat silent in the pews, while a hate-spewing minister damned his country and most everyone else. The question is not why Pennsylvanians “cling to their religion”, but why do the Obamas still cling to the Trinity Church that seems far more extreme than anything I’ve seen in rural America.
4. “antipathy to people who aren't like them”—as in the case of Rev. Wright’s views of Jews, whites, Italians, or Americans in general? In short, Obama accuses rural Pennsylvanians of a racism that they haven’t expressed while contextualizing the racism that his own Rev. Wright has.
5. “Anti-immigrant sentiment”? As in wishing that drivers’ licenses are not issued to those here illegally, or that we insist that those who immigrate to the U.S. do so legally?
6. The worst hypocrisy, of course, is Obama’s charge that these small towns in Pennsylvania express “anti-trade sentiment.” It was not George Bush or John McCain, but Barack Obama himself who tried to salvage Ohio by demagoguing NAFTA and opposing a free-trade agreement with Columbia. His entire campaign is predicated on showing more anti-trade sentiment that the Clintons.
7. Let me get this straight: Obama goes to the Bay Area to an affluent liberal enclave to give a condescending take on the supposed poor fools that he is currently trying to court. This is not just hypocritical, but abjectly stupid. All of Pennsylvania surely is asking today what is so hip and sophisticated about the Trinity Church and Rev. Wright?
So here we have the essential Obama, a walking paradox between the postmodern hip-Ivy-Leaguer who sneers at middle-class America’s supposed prejudices and parochialism, while at the same time courting an anti-Enlightenment, prejudicial demagogue like Jeremiah Wright. For free trade or anti-free trade? For 2nd-amendment rights or not? Post-religious or pious and fundamentalist? For public campaign financing or not? A uniter of various groups or someone who sees America in terms of “they”? Straight-talking or someone who evokes "context" to explain away the inexplicable?
Again, we will see more and more of these condescending statements of the Michelle Obama strain, more and more of Revs. Wright, Meeks, Lee and others peddlers of division like them, and more and more clues to a long hostility to Israel—in what will eventually become the most disastrous chapter in recent Democratic history.
And pundits keep wondering why Hillary won't give up?
Victor Davis Hanson |
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| DJ Shibby |
He's speaking his mind and he's probably right.
PS: At this point, I think every American is rightfully bitter. |
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