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Obama defends comments about bitterness in small towns
The Chicago Tribune ^ | April 11, 2008 | John McCormick

Posted on 04/11/2008 7:54:25 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - Sen. Barack Obama was criticized Friday by his two fellow presidential candidates for statements he made recently at a San Francisco fundraiser that could be viewed as derogatory toward rural America.

"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 Sunday, according to the Huffington Post web site.

"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," Obama reportedly continued. "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."

Obama does not allow reporters into fundraisers held at private residences, so they were not reported at the time.

The comments could fuel suggestions that Obama can be arrogant. They began circulating on the Internet Friday and drew rapid responses from both Sen. Hillary Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination, and Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee.

"It's a remarkable statement and extremely revealing," McCain adviser Steve Schmidt said in a statement. "It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking, it is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans."

Clinton, campaigning in Pennsylvania, also suggested Obama sounded like an elitist.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; Politics/Elections; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: adividernotauniter; amishvote; antitheism; condescendingliberal; elections; elitists; flyovercountry; gaffe; hillary; liberalbigot; macacamoment; mccain; obama; pa2008; phonychristian; projection; psychobabble; rural; thescreampart2
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I had a long drive today from the Philadelphia suburbs to Michigan, so I had a lot of time to think and listen to the radio. We've been hearing a lot from Obama and Clinton in Pennsylvania lately. It has occurred to me that he is not only young and inexperienced. He also clearly lacks the experience of growing up on the American mainland.

Obama spent his youth in Indonesia, and Hawaii. There are many things which he has just plain missed. Being born in 1961, he has no memory of JFK or the stable, prosperous America that existed before all the upheaval of the late 1960's. During the years of the Vietnam war, he was either too young to be aware of it, in Indonesia, or living a sheltered life with grandparents in Hawaii. None of those situations would have provided much insight into the lives and views of typical Americans during those tumultous years.He has no idea of the disruption caused by groups like the Weather Underground. For him it's just an abstraction or novelty. During the horrible Carter years of double-digit mortgage rates, stagflation and gas lines, he was just a teenager in private school in Hawaii. He has no direct experience of trying to earn a living, buy a house or even keep a car fueled during those difficult years.

Obama must have entered college around 1979. Most of his early years living on the American mainland were as a college and law student during the comparatively stable and prosperous Reagan years.

It's hard to see how someone with so little experience with ordinary Americans and so little time "in country" could possibly understand this nation well enough to be President. It's no wonder he comes across as an elitist. He's out of touch because he is, in many respects, a newcomer. He has little experience with the damage poor leadership has caused, and fails to comprehend its (proper) limitations. He's scary, on a lot of levels.

81 posted on 04/11/2008 9:26:13 PM PDT by Think free or die
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

He's running out of excuses. Rev. Wright didn't say it and Obama wasn't merely nodding off in the audience. These were very detailed and condescending comments.

82 posted on 04/11/2008 9:28:02 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: t2buckeye
“antipathy to people who aren’t like them”...in otherwords, they’re racists

I think you can also say "anti-gay' - he was with the 'elite' in San Francisco, after all

83 posted on 04/11/2008 9:28:16 PM PDT by maine-iac7 ("...but you can't fool all of the people all of the time" LINCOLN)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Well, he clings to his $99 a pound imported ham


84 posted on 04/11/2008 9:31:16 PM PDT by correctthought (Hippies, want to change the world, but all they ever do is smoke pot and smell bad)
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To: F15Eagle

"Mmm... mmmm! GOOD CRACKER!"

85 posted on 04/11/2008 9:34:12 PM PDT by weegee (Obama: small-town America “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them")
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To: DGHoodini
Don't worry, the Change is coming, and there will be no turning back. Obama will not allow them to go back to living in ignorance.
86 posted on 04/11/2008 9:34:35 PM PDT by Hugin (Mecca delenda est!)
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Comment #87 Removed by Moderator

To: Patrick1

Barry Says:

I’m a Typical White Person:
Pro Gun,
Pro God,
Anti Illegals.

(Pretty good, and he doesn’t even know me!) However, I don’t cross over to the other sidewalk when I see a black man coming.

Now, if I really had the guts I’d put that on my truck. But I’m in Seattle, so don’t think I will. Maybe a T-shirt!?


88 posted on 04/11/2008 9:34:54 PM PDT by 21twelve (Don't wish for peace. Pray for Victory.)
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Comment #89 Removed by Moderator

To: 2ndDivisionVet

90 posted on 04/11/2008 9:35:26 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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Comment #91 Removed by Moderator

To: Think free or die

His racism has been well groomed though. Now he is being courted by the same. His description of God’s followers and believers in the Constitution as “clinging” in hard times, describes his own faith and constitution. Truly sad that anyone overlooks this.


92 posted on 04/11/2008 9:37:55 PM PDT by eyedigress
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

When this freak Obama goes down in flames, I will once again be proud of Americans and their ability to recognize a modern-day Harold Hill.


93 posted on 04/11/2008 9:38:04 PM PDT by Nomorjer Kinov (If the opposite of "pro" is "con" , what is the opposite of progress?)
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To: HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity

But, will it stick to “Teflon Man”?


94 posted on 04/11/2008 9:45:55 PM PDT by no dems (Barack Obama's Pastor is nuttier than a squirrel turd.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
He's right. Just like Charlton Heston I do cling to my guns and my religion. Not because I'm in a small town but because I'm close to L.A. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! From my cold dead hand!
95 posted on 04/11/2008 9:48:10 PM PDT by gc4nra ( this tag line protected by Kimber and the First Amendment (I voted for McClintock))
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"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."

Yes, it is typical of what a big city lib thinks of small town America.

96 posted on 04/11/2008 9:48:35 PM PDT by Inyo-Mono (If you don't want people to get your goat, don't tell them where it's tied.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

It’s finally coming to the surface-his relationships with Jeremiah Wright and Billy Ayers were warning signs-now he and his wife are really beginning to spew out their own hateful attitudes-i think he’s peaked and I can’t see him winning in November.


97 posted on 04/11/2008 9:49:55 PM PDT by steamroller
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To: Think free or die

The key to understanding Obama’s political worldview is to understand what he was told about America by his mother during his formative years in her self-imposed exile in Indonesia. Her narrative no doubt focused on America’s shortcomings, especially with regard to ambitious young women with interracial fetishes and ambitious foreign-exchange students.

Obama’s core political ambition is to reconfigure America into the country his parents said they wanted it to be, a country which would have prevented his parents from breaking up and abandoning him.


98 posted on 04/11/2008 9:54:12 PM PDT by Philo-Junius (One precedent creates another. They soon accumulate and constitute law.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Obama is a racist.


99 posted on 04/11/2008 9:56:22 PM PDT by BusterBear
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Why didn't he just go ahead and call us "Typical, Red-neck, White People"? That's what he were thinking.
100 posted on 04/11/2008 9:57:28 PM PDT by no dems (Barack Obama's Pastor is nuttier than a squirrel turd.)
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