Opponents Paint Obama as an Elitist: Clinton, McCain Try to Score Off 'Bitter' Remark

Washington Post ^ | 4/12/08 | Perry Bacon Jr.and Shailagh Murray

[JohnHuang2]

PHILADELPHIA, April 11 -- Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain sharply criticized Sen. Barack Obama on Friday for saying at a private April 6 fundraiser in San Francisco that small-town voters in economically distressed areas of Pennsylvania are "bitter."

"Well, that's not my experience," Clinton told a crowd of several hundred at Drexel University. "As I travel around Pennsylvania, I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive. . . . They're working hard every day for a better future for themselves and their children. Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them."

In remarks first reported on the Huffington Post Web site, Obama said, "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 going to regenerate and they have not," he went on. "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."

Obama's comments came at the end of a lengthy answer in which he rejected the notion that voters were passing him over simply for racial reasons, saying instead that his campaign of hope and change was having difficulty in "places where people feel most cynical about government."

"Everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class . . . don't want to vote for the black guy,' " Obama said at the fundraiser.

[elhombrelibre]

Obama clings to the wacky Reverend Wright and his racist rants so much that he smeared his benign grandmother's one-time statement of fear of young black men. This is a who woman who raised him with love, yet Obama smeared her as being the equivalent to Wright's persistent race-hating sermons and anti-American rants. Now, he has the nerve to explain why rural people cling to their churches even as he's clung to one that's full of hate. He has the nerve to tell us one day he's pro-second amendment and the next day to imply that those who keep firearms in rural areas are embittered gun nuts. With Obama, we learn what he really things of much of America when he goes to church or when he's with his fellow snobs and can share openly his contempt of real Americans who are not as deprived as to have had the Ivy League experience that Obama and his wife take for granted. Nor, can most of us pull a few strings to get an extra 200K for our wife's pay, like Obama has done. He's quite the con man.

[singfreedom]

The man just makes his situation worse and worse. Even just shutting his mouth would be preferable to the bottomless grave he's digging for himself. In spite of his million dollar education, the man is a priceless dumbass. It is affirmative action at its very best—or worst—depending on which side you're on.

He is the gift that just keeps on giving. (If you're a Republican.)

[scooby321]

Give give him rope and let him hang himself. He has lost most of America and the hidden union vote

[TheWasteLand]

This guy seems to get stupider by the day.

I suspect the Dems are starting to get a bad case of buyer's remorse. If not now, then soon.

[NavVet]

Even Juan McLame could beat this guy in a landslide.

[Roy Tucker]

A wise man once said, “Be egalitarian towards people and elitist in ideas.”

Obama stands that on his head with the biggest bunch of leftist, coastist drivel ever uttered by a Presidential candidate. Even John Forbes Kerry was smart enough to pretend to care about “fly-over country.”

[Caipirabob]

...sharply criticized Sen. Barack Obama on Friday for saying at a private April 6 fundraiser in San Francisco that small-town voters in economically distressed areas of Pennsylvania are "bitter."

[Caipirabob]

[Solitar]

That the Washington Post is carrying this is a good sign.

[elhombrelibre]

His wife is a piece of work too. Despite going to our finest schools, and despite the 200K a year pay raise her husband was able to get her at one of her consulting jobs, she plays the poseur's role of the put-upon, chip-on-her shoulder ingrate. What phonies! Many people have far tougher lives than these urban yokels, but they want to claim they've much to be bitter about and cannot be proud of their country. Obama cannot wear the flag on his lapel, too corny. Mrs Ingrate Obama wants to say she wasn't proud of the country until her husband achieved the near certain nomination of his party for the highest office in the land after having achieved nothing (name one thing he's done other than bamboozle Illinois) and having won his supporters with the most empty-minded rhetoric and pish posh in the history of the Republic ("We are the people we've been waiting for."). His duping of Americans can make her proud, but enjoying great success and liberty cannot. He is so stupid he wants to meet with all of America's enemies and no doubt gobble up their cant like he does with the Reverend Wright.

And speaking of that idiot, this is the pseudo minister who after all of his rants about whitey purchases a mansion in an all white suburb. Hypocrites, demogoguges, and poseurs is all they are, yet they're successfuly taking advantage of the urban and Liberal rubes.

[nhwingut]

And they satire W for being slow on his feet... This guy is dangerous without a teleprompter.

Keep on talking you marxist fraud.

[elhombrelibre]

He was showing his true feelings in front of a crowd that shares his elitist condescension for rural Americans. Sometimes the real Obama comes out. And it shows us why he's a man further to the Left than Ted Kennedy and endorsed by Ted Kennedy. It shows us why we cannot be indifferent to him being president. It shows us the type of man he is - one who is the most pro-abortion we've ever had running for president.

This guy for 20 years sat in the pews of a minister that spewed racial hatred. and Obama didn't leave; he gave him tens of thousands of dollars. And when found out by the public, he used the sophistry of moral equivalence to defend himself. He took a one time remark his benign white old grandmother who had raised him, and used this remark she had made about a perception of an aggressive young black man to set up a moral equivalence with the lunatic race obsessions of his minister. This guy is a real piece of work. Then, the moron implies that he could no more leave his minister than he could his grandma. One doesn't choose his grandma, Obama. What kind of logic is this that thrills the Liberals?

[patch789]

is this a correct quote of BHO, or 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.<

[moonman]

I moved from PA in 1986, the last year it was fully a red state. My family has over 300 year history there. The last 20 years has shown PA as a wannbe Jersey!

Yeah, my family tells me, "Oh! It's only Philly and Pittsburgh that are blue areas, the rest of the state is red"

Bullchit! Get out of PA.

[a_dem_no_more]

Naah Moon,

They are right. Its the battle I fight here at FR being from New York. If you look at the county by county electoral maps for New York, from 2000 and 2004. Bush won a majority of the counties in New York State by an overwhelming majority. The problem is us rural and exurban folk, get blown out of the water by NYC, Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester which have high minority populations. Also because NY is a “liberal” state, we get everyone else’s liberals moving here. Im not ready to surrender, yet....

[oldironsides]

Get out of Pa.? Not a chance. This state is worth it.
We raised our family and have a business here. Rendell will not be chief executive forever and the legislature will be without the likes of Vince Fumo. Things are looking good.
Why are people from NJ moving to Pennsylvania? Taxes are driving them out

[mplsconservative]

It is a correct quote. Check out the Washington Times thread here running on the same subject:

“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,” he said.

Just wow! I hope this quote gets as much exposure as possible. I thought the Wright scandal would bring Obama down, but it hasn't. I guess the left laps up this stuff like righteous Kool-Aid. Some of our fellow countrymen and women are seriously deranged.

[Jabba the Nutt]

The killer remark...well, one of the killer remarks in Obama's remarkable screed is the imputation of racism to white Americans....again. This is in line with Obama's magnificient, Churchillian, Kingesque speech on racism, where he threw his white Grandma under the bus and spoke of "typical white people" as bigots.

And one thing I do credit Obama for, Obama knows bigots...he chose a pastor, who is one and went to his church for 20 years.

[engrpat]

Obama doesn't understand, it is a white thing. He seems to see whites through racist eyes, filtered through a racist mind. He just don't get it.