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Obama calls elitism attack "political silly season"
reuters ^ | Apr 15, 2008 | Ellen Wulfhorst

Posted on 04/15/2008 2:27:41 PM PDT by mdittmar

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, accused of being elitist for remarks he made about small-town American voters, said on Tuesday the slap at his background is amusing and signals a nation in the midst of "political silly season."

The Democratic senator, campaigning in Pennsylvania, dismissed the charges of being elitist and out of touch by fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton and by Republican John McCain as unfounded, given his background.

"I am amused about this notion of elitist, given that when you're raised by a single mom, when you were on food stamps for a while when you were growing up, you went to school on scholarship," he told a town hall meeting of U.S. military veterans in western Pennsylvania.

Obama has come under fire by opponents after he told an audience in San Francisco last week that economic problems led voters in some small towns to become "bitter" and "cling to guns or religion" as an outlet for their frustrations.

Neither of his wife Michelle's parents attended college, and both he and his wife financed their educations with student loans, Obama said.

"We lived for the first 13 years of our marriage up until three years ago in a three-bedroom condo without a garage so if you live in Chicago that means you're scraping ice every morning," he said in rejecting the elitist label.

"When somebody makes that argument, particularly given that I've spent my entire life working with workers in low-income communities to try to make people's lives a little bit better, that's when you know you're in political silly season," said Obama, who leads Clinton in the tight race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"This is what we do politically when we start getting behind in races, and we start going on the attack," he said.

The winner of the Democratic presidential nomination faces McCain, the Republican presumptive nominee, in the November general election.

Obama and his wife lived in a condominium they bought in 1993 for $277,500, The Boston Globe reported. They now live in a house for which they paid $1.95 million in 2005.

Clinton has condemned Obama's remarks from last week in a political ad featuring a woman saying she was "insulted," while McCain said the comments represented "a certain out-of-touch elitism."

Obama's comments on Tuesday came in response to a man in the audience who said he felt the label of elitist was not far from the label of "uppity," a racially insulting term used against blacks.

Obama said he did not think there were racial overtones to the criticism.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Political Humor/Cartoons; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bitter; elitists; obama; sillyseason
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To: mdittmar
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41 posted on 04/15/2008 3:04:28 PM PDT by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: mdittmar
He's a sociopath who is incapable of feeling guilt or any threat to what he sees as his entitlement.
42 posted on 04/15/2008 3:05:13 PM PDT by Vision ("If God so clothes the grass of the field...will He not much more clothe you...?" -Matthew 6:30)
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To: mdittmar

Doesn’t this candidate’s campaign have any handlers? Or is it racist to ask if a black dude has handlers? I’ll retract the question. Never mind.


43 posted on 04/15/2008 3:05:30 PM PDT by Sig Sauer P220
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To: Riverman94610

When ones elitism translates into condescension and contempt. The answer is yes.


44 posted on 04/15/2008 3:06:24 PM PDT by Kozak (Anti Shahada: There is no god named Allah, and Muhammed is a false prophet)
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To: Kozak

Yes,very true.Yet is is SOOO hard to resist those impulses and to maintain our better natures when so much of what I see around me in our culture is mindless garbage and so many of”the masses”(don’t mean to sound Marxist there)seem to gobble that stuff up.


45 posted on 04/15/2008 3:09:34 PM PDT by Riverman94610
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To: mdittmar
Photobucket
46 posted on 04/15/2008 3:13:30 PM PDT by pipecorp ( Al Lahsucks (boat steersman ) hell)
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To: mdittmar

Probably but Carter-Ford and Clinton-Dole could at least take place and show.


47 posted on 04/15/2008 3:13:55 PM PDT by A_Former_Democrat
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To: MediaMole

McCain is the salt of the earth? Nah.


48 posted on 04/15/2008 3:14:39 PM PDT by soupcon
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To: x; shrinkermd; Kenny Bunk

“For example, I was going to a fancy prep school,”

Unless I missed it in his autobiography, he misses and does not comprehend, the uniqueness of that school. It was not just any school, but Punahou.

Punahou might, or was in the pass, the most ethnicity/race obsessed high school atmosphere in the whole United States. Students and atmosphere. In fact, I don’t think he realized it and thought his school’s atmosphere was standard.


49 posted on 04/15/2008 3:18:15 PM PDT by Shermy ( "We are the ones we have been waiting for" = "egocentric Leninist avant-gardism" + "Messianism")
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To: Riverman94610

He and his campaign still doesn’t get what they said and how bad this is. Unbelievable that they are so clueless. I hear today that in another speech he said a “wise old woman came up and told him that what he said was the truth”, all I could think was “Yep and I bet she was from your church too”.


50 posted on 04/15/2008 3:19:33 PM PDT by chris_bdba
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To: chris_bdba

“wise old woman came up and told him that what he said was the truth”,

A magical caucasian?


51 posted on 04/15/2008 3:22:49 PM PDT by Shermy ( "We are the ones we have been waiting for" = "egocentric Leninist avant-gardism" + "Messianism")
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To: mdittmar
Elitist is as elitist does.

Obama's words simply put a handle on his arrogance. His attempt to pretend 'amusement' at the justified criticism he's getting is classic arrogant behavior. It basically says: you're just stupid and your criticisms are stupid, too".

People such as Barack Obama (hard-core leftists) try to use their childhood, race, whatever they can, to pretend to 'identify' with the majority. However, Obama's San Francisco remarks - denigrating a majority of Americans, many who own guns and take the constitutions Second Amendment seriously, believe in and worship God and take that seriously too as well as oppose unfettered illegal immigration and so on - will not be swept under the proverbial rug so easily even as the MSM attempt to 'move on', as they will.

Obama is not only a total phony but a dangerous one, too. He will be the Democrat presidential candidate and he must be defeated in November, even if that means voting for Lame McCain, who at least doesn't hate his own country. O.K., not much of an endorsement, I agree, but in these kinds of no-win situations, you have to discern what is the least worst choice. God help us, McCain is that choice, even though I wish it were otherwise.

52 posted on 04/15/2008 3:24:57 PM PDT by Jim Scott (Time Heals)
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To: mdittmar

(in the voice of the Great Swimmer!)
Oh ohh ohh ohh
I know a guy named:
OsamObamalamalamalama ding dong,
He’s everything to me,
OsamObamalamalamalamading dong.
I’ll never set him free,
cause he’s mine, all mine.

Oh-Oh-Oh,

I know a guy named:
OsamObamalamalamalama ding dong,
He’s fine to me,
OsamObamalamalamalama ding dong.
you won’t believe,
that he’s mine, oh mine.

OBam-OBam-Barrak-OBam-Bama-Bam-Bam.
I love him,love him,love him so,
And I’ll never, never let him go,
one thing is certain,
he’s mine, oh mine.
- He’s mine -He’s mine-
All of the time.

Oh ohh ohh ohh
I know a guy named:
OsamObamalamalamalama ding dong,
He’s everything to me,
OsamObamalamalamalama ding dong.
I never set him free,
cause he’s mine, oh mine.

BamO-BamO-BamO
Obamading dong
Obamabamadingding dong

BamO-BamO-BamO

I know a guy name of OsamObamalamalamalama ding dong
I never let him go
OsamObamalamalamalama ding dong
I love him-love him so
OsamObamalamalamalamading dong
and he’s mine oh mine

OBam-OBam-OBam...


53 posted on 04/15/2008 3:26:17 PM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ("Don't touch that thing")
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To: kingattax
I LOVE this guy!
54 posted on 04/15/2008 3:27:22 PM PDT by GulfWar1Vet (Maranatha!)
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To: mdittmar
How many of you suckers have been to Harvard? Huh!

Photobucket

55 posted on 04/15/2008 3:28:24 PM PDT by geo40xyz (McCain, Obama or Hillarybeast possibility of 4 Supreme Court Justices, Gore @UN. The WINNER is?)
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To: mdittmar

Obama’s right you know: it’s silly to accuse him of elitism on the basis of his remarks. The correct charge is Marxism.


56 posted on 04/15/2008 3:34:08 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: mdittmar

Obama:

“All you bitter, inbred, back country, gun-owning hicks think I’m elitist? That’s just silly.”


57 posted on 04/15/2008 3:44:10 PM PDT by Disambiguator
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To: scory
At this point I don’t see how McCain can lose against either of these people. But I am sure he will try and find a way.

You must also remember which party is the master of repetative voter fraud. If it gets close, the fraudulent librat commies will pull it out.
58 posted on 04/15/2008 3:48:59 PM PDT by RandallFlagg (Satisfaction was my sin)
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To: mdittmar
This is the worst group of Presidential candidates I have seen in my lifetime.

Absolutely. And this one doesn't even know what he did wrong. Incredible.

59 posted on 04/15/2008 4:00:43 PM PDT by jammer
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To: mdittmar
Obama probably despises whites and "feels sorry" for blacks..
Elitism is that way.. Narcissism and envy drives it..

Liberalism is all about Envy.. and other EVIL devises...

60 posted on 04/15/2008 4:04:57 PM PDT by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole....)
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