Posted on 04/12/2008 8:41:56 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
MUNCIE, Ind - After a full throated response to criticism that he is condescending, Democrat Barack Obama on Saturday conceded that that comments he made about bitter working class voters who "cling to guns or religion" were ill chosen.
"I didn't say it as well as I should have," he said.
As Obama tried to quell the furor, presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton hit him with one of her lengthiest and most pointed criticisms to date.
"Senator Obama's remarks were elitist and out of touch," she said, campaigning about an hour away in Indianapolis. "They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans."
At issue are comments Obama made privately at a fundraising gathering in San Francisco last Sunday. He explained his troubles winning over working class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions:
"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."
The comments, posted on the Huffington Post political Web site Friday, set off a storm of criticism from Clinton, Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain and a number of other GOP officials.
The flap threatened to highlight an Obama Achilles heel — the image that the Harvard-trained lawyer is arrogant and carries himself with an air of superiority.
The campaign has been quick to react, hoping to defuse any damage caused with working class voters that Obama needs to win over in upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
"Lately there has been a little typical sort of political flare up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois who are bitter," Obama said Saturday morning at Ball State University. "They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through."
"So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country or they get frustrated about you know how things are changing."
After acknowledging that his previous remarks could have been better phrased, he added:
"The truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation those are important. That's what sustains us. But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to.
"And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream."
But Clinton struck hard, calling Obama's comments "demeaning." The increased attack showed that Clinton is eager to hold on to her working class support and is looking to open new questions about Obama's judgment that would make voters and Democratic officials reconsider their support for the Illinois senator.
"I was raised with Midwestern values and an unshakable faith in America and its policies," she said. "Now, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it's a matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith.
"I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith. The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich.
"Our faith is the faith of our parents and our grandparents. It is a fundamental expression of who we are and what we believe."
“So how’d it go at the unemployment office today, Jim-Bob?”
“I’m so dang frustrated! The government isn’t listening to me! Where’s my dang gun, Shirley?”
“Where it always is, next to the potatoes in the pantry. Can you explain your frustrations, Jim-Bob?”
“Yeah! I’ll explain ‘em! Watch this!”
Blam! Blam! Blam!
“Would you watch out with that thing? There’s another hole in the water heater, and you almost hit the damn parakeet!”
“Well too bad I didn’t hit one ‘a them durn immigrants! They’re all diffrunt from me!”
“Well dear, you know there’s a tent revival tonight, at least that’s something we can cling to.”
“I don’t know Shirley. If only there was some way we could bring about a… a… change in America.”
“Well now that you mention it Jim-Bob, I was watchin the tee-vee over at the hairdressers today, and there was this nice young man on with some kind of funny A-rab soundin’ name. I didn’t understand what he was sayin’, but whatever it was made me feel good inside, like there was hope again.”
“Ohhhh yeah. That negro fellow at the bowlin alley. First time I’ve ever seen a negro at the bowlin’ alley, huh.”
“Well that’s just it. Such an articulate young man. Even though I didn’t understand nothin’, it was like, I felt like I was floatin’ up on a big cloud, with all the immigrants, and everybody else, even that blockhead brother of yours. And we were all friends, there was this, like, unity.”
“Wow Shirley – that’s great! If only there was someone like that in the central govmint as the President! Someone that would listen to my concerns for a change!”
“Well maybe there can be now, Jim-Bob. Why don’t you put that gun down, and lets eat these beans, before they get cold.”
Ah but that is something Abraham Lincoln would say or do according to Obama’s synchophants.
It's a "Chauncey Gardiner" moment in history. Also a direct result of PC indoctrination and of critical thinking being driven from public "education". This is exactly the result that the ruling oligarchy wants -- a populace so dumbed down and so easily manipulated that virtually ANY empty suit puppet can be elected, while they continue to run the country. We're in he Bread and Circuses phase of the empire.
Then get the federal governent out of our way, and we'll do just fine, thank you very much.
And then we have Obama's "Trinity Church", teaching that salvation is found not in Jesus, but in Marxist doctrine.
“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.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Translation;
It’s not surprising they are all low-class idiots and vastly inferior to my educated self!
He would have been smart to have left guns and religion out of it but to some extent he was right. Workers in some of these small towns across America have been devastated by companies closing due to globalization. Some of these states are not willing to offer competitive incentives to attract new business and a lot of these workers lack the skills for more technological fields. They do become bitter and focus resentment on free trade deals and foreigners. A lot of these workers never saw it coming and were ill prepared for the 21st. century. So to say they are bitter it probably right.
He’s good at playing to the audience foreign or domestic, that’s for sure, seems like he is a man of many faces, and now learning to be a man of many about faces too..
Imagine him as the Big Kahuna (shudder..) God help us all.
I wish the dems would have both candidates debate again, it would be entertaining. We need to make sure Soros and the effete elite gets their money’s worth.
so...he said he could have worded it better -and then he goes and repeats what he already has said.
amazing.
"I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith. The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich.
"Our faith is the faith of our parents and our grandparents. It is a fundamental expression of who we are and what we believe."
She's lying, of course.
But I wonder if any GOP politicians have the guts to make such a strong statement.
Obama wasn’t offering any solutions to poverty in Pennsylvania anymore that LBJ was to hillbillies.
The talking point is that this “down on their luck” demographic votes 2nd amendment, anti-abortion, and traditional family, which are 180 degrees to the Democrat stance on these issues. The usual talking points of “we are the party of the little guy” don’t work, no matter what the promised handout.
Do government handouts work? Does expanding the welfare state RESOLVE the issues of steel production in Pennsylvania?
If the concern is “outsourcing labor”, why would he be FOR bringing in 20 million NEW immigrant workers to the workforce?
What is being done to preserve higher wage jobs in engineering in this country?
Barack’s agenda is set. He’s trying to find the right pitch to SELL IT.
Now, if I could just figure out how to put nObama’s face on Fonzie’s body! LOL.
These days, that’s a racist jpg.
When people are hasty to purchase a “pig in a poke”, and find out they bought something bad, then they want their money back. When it comes to Presidents, it doesn’t work that way, and they had better wake up now.
“so the wheels are beginning to come off his wagon.”
It’s not a Radio Flyer, too American for Obama.
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