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Obama on small-town PA: Clinging religion, guns, xenophobia
Politico.com ^ | 04/11/08 | Ben Smith

Posted on 04/11/2008 1:08:33 PM PDT by JRochelle

Mayhill Fowler has more from Obama's remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser Sunday, and they include an attempt to explain the resentment in small-town Pennsylvania that won't be appreciated by some of the people whose votes Obama's seeking:

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...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.

That's pretty broad list of things to explain with job loss.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Politics/Elections; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: 2008; albatross; banglist; barackhusseinobama; barak; blueturban; commie; condescendingliberal; elitism; elitists; hussein; lendmeyourears; macacamoment; mccainnotbetter; nobama; notbreakingnews; obama; obamasama; obambi; osamabama; pa; pa2008; racistbama; rats; rural; slownewsday; smalltown; snob; toast; typicalwhitepeople
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To: JRochelle

Typical white people?


41 posted on 04/11/2008 2:04:52 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: FredZarguna
perhaps Obama is projecting. We know for example, the he hails from a "church" (clinging to religion) where "RICH WHITE PEOPLE" are routinely trashed (xenophobia) and his wife is constantly shooting her stupid mouth off

Well said. LOL.

42 posted on 04/11/2008 2:04:58 PM PDT by expatpat
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To: FredZarguna

You are right, they are alike, but Teddy killed someone.

Thats the thing that makes him worse.


43 posted on 04/11/2008 2:06:24 PM PDT by JRochelle (Obama on small town America: bitter, cling to guns or religion, anti-immigrant people.)
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To: stan_sipple

“liberals cling to their multiculturalism, identity politics, and responsibility avoidance...”

Liberals also cling to their own religion...specifically, the worship of “Mother Earth” and Environmentalism.


44 posted on 04/11/2008 2:06:25 PM PDT by Towed_Jumper (Stephen Hopkins: Founding Father who had Cerebral Palsy.."My hand trembles, my heart does not.")
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To: All

ROTFLMAO!!!!

I can’t believe he’s getting away with this!
Is he on crack?


45 posted on 04/11/2008 2:06:45 PM PDT by Fox_Mulder77
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To: F15Eagle
The Founders never intended for the people who could put Obama in the White House to have the right to vote in the first place, and indeed when the Republic was founded, and for the first 150 years of its existence, they didn't.

This is a mess of our own making.

John Adams to James Sullivan on women, the poor, and voting rights

May 26, 1776

[Adams explains why women, children, and the poor are excluded from the vote. — TGW]

It is certain in theory, that the only moral foundation of government is the consent of the people. But to what an extent shall we carry this principle? Shall we say, that every individual of the community, old and young, male and female, as well as rich and poor, must consent, expressly, to every act of legislation? No, you will say. This is impossible. How then does the right arise in the majority to govern the minority, against their will? Whence arises the right of the men to govern women, without their consent? Whence the right of the old to bind the young, without theirs?

But let us first suppose, that the whole community of every age, rank, sex, and condition, has a right to vote. This community, is assembled—a motion is made and carried by a majority of one voice. The minority will not agree to this. Whence arises the right of the majority to govern, and the obligation of the minority to obey? from necessity, you will say, because there can be no other rule.

But why exclude women? You will say, because their delicacy renders them unfit for practice and experience, in the great business of life, and the hardy enterprises of war, as well as the arduous cares of state. Besides, their attention is so much engaged with the necessary nurture of their children, that nature has made them fittest for domestic cares. And children have not judgment or will of their own. True. But will not these reasons apply to others?

Is it not equally true, that men in general in every society, who are wholly destitute of property, are also too little acquainted with public affairs to form a right judgment, and too dependent upon other men to have a will of their own?

If this is a fact, if you give to every man, who has no property, a vote, will you not make a fine encouraging provision for corruption by your fundamental law?Such is the frailty of the human heart, that very few men, who have no property, have any judgment of their own. They talk and vote as they are directed by some man of property, who has attached their minds to his interest…

I should think that wisdom and policy would dictate in these times, to be very cautious of making alterations. Our people have never been very rigid in scrutinizing into the qualifications of voters, and I presume they will not now begin to be so. But I would not advise them to make any alteration in the laws, at present, respecting the qualifications of voters.

Your idea, that those laws, which affect the lives and personal liberty of all, or which inflict corporal punishment, affect those, who are not qualified to vote, as well as those who are, is just. But, so they do women, as well as men, children as well as adults. What reason should there be, for excluding a man of twenty years, Eleven months and twenty-seven days old, from a vote when you admit one, who is twenty one? The reason is, you must fix upon some period in life, when the understanding and will of men in general is fit to be trusted by the public. Will not the same reason justify the state in fixing upon some certain quantity of property, as a qualification.

The same reasoning, which will induce you to admit all men, who have no property, to vote, with those who have, for those laws, which affect the person will prove that you ought to admit women and children: for generally speaking, women and children, have as good judgment, and as independent minds as those men who are wholly destitute of property: these last being to all intents and purposes as much dependent upon others, who will please to feed, clothe, and employ them, as women are upon their husbands, or children on their parents…

Society can be governed only by general rules. Government cannot accommodate itself to every particular case, as it happens, nor to the circumstances of particular persons. It must establish general, comprehensive regulations for cases and persons. The only question is, which general rule, will accommodate most cases and most persons.

Depend upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation, as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters. There will be no end of it. New claims will arise. Women will demand a vote. Lads from 12 to 21 will think their rights not enough attended to, and every man, who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks, to one common level.

46 posted on 04/11/2008 2:06:55 PM PDT by Rome2000 (Peace is not an option)
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Comment #47 Removed by Moderator

To: JRochelle
The only politician who would be worse that Obama as President would be Ted Kennedy.

Your statement is a blatant attack on those who appreciate a once in a while taste of the bubbly, for the only difference between Ted Kennedy and Barrack Obama is personal definition placed on "happy hour".

Ted Kennedy with his skewering of the definition of "Happy Hour" shouldn't make him worse via his politics should it? LOL!

48 posted on 04/11/2008 2:08:15 PM PDT by EGPWS (Trust in God, question everyone else)
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To: F15Eagle

I think Obama is much more beatable. Really.

Hillary looks conservative next to this guy.


49 posted on 04/11/2008 2:08:35 PM PDT by JRochelle (Obama on small town America: bitter, cling to guns or religion, anti-immigrant people.)
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To: Rome2000

One of my rhetorical questions would be

from whence arises the right of the unpropertied to govern the property of its rightful owners?


50 posted on 04/11/2008 2:09:24 PM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: JRochelle

Sorry..we don’t need a reason to cling to guns. We had that reason over 200 years ago. Obama looks just like one of those reasons...the reasons all look alike.


51 posted on 04/11/2008 2:10:31 PM PDT by Earthdweller (All reality is based on faith in something.)
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To: AdmSmith; Berosus; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; george76; ...
Obama's remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser: "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... 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."

52 posted on 04/11/2008 2:12:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_____________________Profile updated Saturday, March 29, 2008)
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To: MrB

The Farmer Refuted

Alexander Hamilton
1775

[The classic argument for limiting voting rights to adult males who own property: so that voters are excluded who are dependent on the wills of others for their livelihood. — TGW]

[Hamilton is quoting Blackstone’s Commentaries, bk. 1, ch. 2:]

“If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote… But since that can hardly be expected, in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby, some who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting; in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other.”


53 posted on 04/11/2008 2:13:23 PM PDT by Rome2000 (Peace is not an option)
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To: JRochelle

Obama will now lose PA to Clinton by 12 points.


54 posted on 04/11/2008 2:14:26 PM PDT by pabianice
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To: JRochelle

Is Missus O now writing his speeches?


55 posted on 04/11/2008 2:14:28 PM PDT by bigbob (2)
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To: Williams
Obama views all mainstream traditional views as diseases to be eradicated.

And the carbon based units that hold those views must also.be destroyed.

V-Ger

56 posted on 04/11/2008 2:15:08 PM PDT by evad (.I.)
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To: JRochelle

FNC is running with this!


57 posted on 04/11/2008 2:15:58 PM PDT by KansasGirl
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To: JRochelle
I voted for Obama in the Calif primary, it is the first time my wife had no reply to what I said.
58 posted on 04/11/2008 2:16:02 PM PDT by SF Republican
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To: Fox_Mulder77
I can’t believe he’s getting away with this!

Is he on crack?

If you can't believe he is getting away with it in these times, perhaps you are on crack!

Sarcasm meant Fox_Mulder77. ; )

59 posted on 04/11/2008 2:18:01 PM PDT by EGPWS (Trust in God, question everyone else)
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To: JRochelle
O.K. this guy totally creeps me out. Thats why I'm voting for him in the primary May 6!

I sure like your thinking on this - he creeps me out as well - it's actually getting real strange - the possible next first lady has a huge chip on her shoulder sort of scolds people that are willing to listen to her - he's up there like a preacher pretending to be a politician but trying to avoid being a 'normal' politician. The whole race thing at so many levels - it's like the twilight zone - but, what a great person to run against in the general election!

By the way, it seems that all the demos needed to do is nominate a 'normal' person with a reasonable way of looking at life and the world - that's not going to happen, they apparently couldn't find one.

60 posted on 04/11/2008 2:18:58 PM PDT by Sonora
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