Free Republic

Americans have a stunning visual of what political “owesies” can be, thanks to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s bleep-filled pursuit of political paybacks. Yet there is a more reasonable side to rewarding individuals who help a candidate to win. Two of the more deserving outside of Barack Obama’s Chicago network are Sen. Ted Kennedy and outgoing Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean. “While Kennedy provided Sen. Obama with the imprimatur of a legitimate Democratic candidate, one in particular who was more liberal rather than centrist, Gov. Dean was more important for Sen. Obama’s campaign,” says Villanova University political science professor Lara Brown....

Would it have been any better for Barack Obama to have said people "rely" on bigotry rather than "cling" to it? I don't think so, but apparently he does . . . This morning's "Today" aired an extended clip from an interview Meredith Vieira recently conducted of Barack and Michelle Obama. The full interview will be shown Saturday on MSNBC. While I didn't detect any blockbuster moments, there were a few notable nuggets. On the issue of why he didn't distance himself from Rev. Wright sooner, Obama says: "When those first snippets came out, I thought it was important to...

We know who you’re talking about, Barack Obama, when you talk about Pennsylvania and the Midwest, about small towns where the jobs have left. We know who you’re talking about when you talk about those who “get bitter” and “cling to guns or religion.” You’re talking about “those people.” You’re talking about white people who have neither the family connections nor the racial credentials to gain entrance to the world that you inhabit. Many of the people you’re talking about are those whose parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe who came to these places to...

And from the standpoint of Obama campaign figures, the material was gotten under false pretenses. One top Obama hand speaks of the campaign and candidate being blindsided. Fowler was a supporter, a contributor, an activist, a blogger, not a reporter. With the event closed to the press, Obama spoke with less care than he would have otherwise had he known a reporter, of any sort, was in attendance.

The odor of elitism is like onion breath: It’s quick to acquire, hard to mask. Try as he might, Barack Obama cannot camouflage the political stink he exhaled when he dissed small-town Americans as “bitter” Neanderthals “clinging” to their guns, faith, and belief in strict immigration enforcement. It wasn’t the first time the effete Snob-ama revealed himself. In Philadelphia, he passed up the hometown cheesesteak — gloppy, artery-clogging, and blue-collar (yum!) — for a nibble of Spanish-imported, $100/pound ham. In Iowa, he moaned to voters about the price of arugula at Whole Foods. (Fun fact: There aren’t any Whole Foods...

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama said yesterday that he "mangled" his words when he described small town Americans as "bitter" at a private San Francisco fundraiser. Obama spoke to the Philadelphia Daily News editorial board last night, after a long weekend spent clarifying his statement that many small town voters had grown "bitter" over their economic status and "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, has hammered Obama for days over the remarks, saying that he is out of touch with voters. She began...

Small-town Pennsylvanians aren’t bitter; they’re optimists, steeped in family and tradition, and upset that Barack Obama would characterize them as gun-toting zealots. That was the message Mayor Chris Doherty had at a news conference Saturday called to rebut comments recently made by Mr. Obama, D-Ill. Mr. Doherty and supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., including other mayors and union officials, rallied outside the county courthouse, saying Mr. Obama’s remarks reflect a disconnect. “For a man who just spent six days crossing this state saying he was listening, obviously he wasn’t listening, because he missed us,” Mr. Doherty said. At a...