This is your response to "bittergate" after your return from your Malibu weekend? Why not include some of the photos from the beach at Malibu? That would be lovely. Something to look while looking at your out of touch commentary.

I don't think that the argument is that economic distress causes gun culture or the other things. Rather, the argument is that people vote on gun issues or non-economic issues because voters don't perceive that their distressed economic sitation will change depending on who they vote for.

I think the point ... and I'm not sure if I agree ... is as a consequence of long-term economic distress, rural areas are voting on gun culture or religion, rather than pocketbook issues.

I think at best it's partially correct. You have the "after NAFTA, what are the Democrats offering that's different?" voters, but you also have the fact that things like gays-in-the-military really do upset a lot of people. I don't know what the mix is.

I think at its heart, Obama's comments were addressing how the real causes of economic stress are pushed to the sidelines by attempts to separate voters on values issues. It was very clumsy phrasing and he would have been better served if he inserted a republican 'they' as those trying to make rural Americans focus on the issues he listed.
Really stupid non-issue, though.

I looked it as trying to explain why some people become so emotional and intransigent in their views and politics. They've lost so much of thier particular way of life (and blaming it on outside forces beyond their control) that they're going to dig in their heels to protect what's left. Doesn't matter that gun culture and religious tradition go back for centuries - right now, these people are ultra-defensive (for good reason) and see no reason or need to compromise.

As usual with the media it lends itself to shallow analysis and redicule, rather than attempting to explain the situations and motivations of real people. Kudos to Obama for recognizing it and talking about it (after all, these are people who should be Democrats, except for antipathy for some issues that are very important to other Democrats and they shouldn't be taken for granted) and shame on Hillary and the media for ignorantly piling-on without giving a good examination of what he said.

I don't think the meaning of what he said is how you've interpreted it.

I think you're the first liberal pundit I've read who DOESN'T think this is true, and I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Obviously, economic problems don't suddenly cause people to love guns or religion more -- but it's a truism, a correct truism, I think -- that stress tends to make people return to their emotional roots, whatever that happens to be. For me, it's matzoh ball soup and "Singin' in the Rain" or "The Daily Show," for someone else it might be guns and Lou Dobbs. And then politicians exploit this stress.

Robert Reich has a terrific post up about it.

honestpartisan and Nicholas are correct, Kevin. In no way did BHO say that economic anxiety among blue-collar voters "created" gun culture or other "culture" issues.

As others are posting the Obama statements are about why people of fractured circumstance vote against their own economic interest.

As others have said, the idea is not that Religion and Gun Culture are a result of economic distress... it's that after 25 years of economic distress and empty promises from politicians, those things are the only things they think their vote is going to effect... so it's very easy for Republicans to use these wedge issues against Democrats.

Obama's speech reminded me of the book, "What's the Matter with Kansas?", about why many rural and poor people seem to vote agains their own economic interests. I also think that it is true that some people feel they are free when they own guns but don't bother to question ways in which they are part of a system that limits their life choices and that is oppressive. Maybe Obama's speech sounded condescending, but it was accurate.

I think that Kevin is nitpicking at specifics in Obama's argument. It is hard to encapsulate the helplessness that various people and communities feel, and to decipher the root cause.

Obama went specific when he should have went meta. Kevin decided to deconstruct the specific instead of the overwhelming feeling of helplessness/hopleessness that many of these people are living with.

"This stuff just doesn't seem to be related to recent economic distress in any serious way at all."

Kevin, you're missing the point, I think. Obama's claim is that people have lost control over a very basic part of their lives -- economic security. Unions shrink, plants close and jobs disappear, the jobs that remain pay less and have fewer benefits, promised pension benefits disappear, and all the while the rich get richer and "the government" favors the rich and big business over "the little guy."

And because something so important has changed so drastically in their lifetimes, they cling even tighter to the other areas of their lives that are important to them. And they act out in inappropriate ways because of fear and because of misplaced anger and frustration.

I think what Obama was getting at was that economic troubles are why people increasingly VOTE according to religious issues, gun culture, immigration, etc. Not that it explains the lifestyles themselves. Cling = vote.

At the very least, Obama seems to be saying that voting/clinging to God or guns is a natural reaction to inaction from Democratic and Republican administrations. The Thomas Frank-type argument normally seems to view red state-voting as some sort of cognitive disfunction.

"But does anyone really think that stagnant wages and globalization are responsible for rural gun culture? Or the rise of the Christian right? Or an increase in bigotry?"

Yes, I do. I grew up in a small town in Pa, and still visit it often. There is no doubt that as the financial and professional fortunes of these good people declined, they turned to various salves, and hating on other people became one of the major ones. Religion transformed into a sugar-coating for thinking ill of others, from libruls to Democrats and so on.

Several generations have seen their self-worth flushed away as they were told to get used to worse jobs, worse pay, worse educations, worse social services, etc.

I can recall no liberal or Democratic or other effort, by the way, to take away anyone's hunting rifles. I do recall the NRA (the "R" is for "rifle," ironically enough) making a huge amount of money by scaring these people into thinking someone WANTED to take away their rifles.

History, and facts, matter. Obama's remarks were on the money if inartfully phrased. But no matter - it gives the gas-bag press an opportunity to go on and on about how noble is American "faith." Well, that and the Pope's visit.

Sheesh.

I thought of it yesterday -- before Kristol's NY Times column today -- that Obama's comment could be interpreted as "religion is the opiate of the masses."

I'm not commenting on the correctness of that statement, only on how the GOP will be interpreting it between now and November. From this perspective, it's a very, very, very big problem for the Democratic Party (assuming Obama gets the nomination).

As economic systems of identification--labor unions, etc.,-- have faded in the last twenty or so years, lifestyle identification has risen.

But I'm still not sure Obama's right from an analysis standpoint. For one thing, the areas that have lost the most jobs--like the Rust Belt--seem to be voting more heavily Democratic than they were a generation ago, even though Democrats have embraced free trade.

If you read David Coleman on Huffington Post, who was actually there at the San Francisco fundraiser, Obama's comments were part of a longer answer to a volunteer's inquiry about how to talk to Pennsylyvania voters. And Obama's answer, per Coleman, emphasized the differences of people in various regions, and talked about how the conversations should be about the voters' real feelings, instead of 10 point programs. And, interestingly, Obama also talked about the alienation and bitterness of black youths in the inner cities, and how that gets expressed in violence.

The piece that Kevin is focusing on, and everyone else, is a small part of a larger extemporization about what Obama observed voters cared about. And yes, the phrasing sucked a little (Nobody likes to be told they "cling" to anything). But I think the attempt really was to express what other commenters have noted, that if someone who is in a bad economic position can't do anything about it, they divert their energies, including depression and anger, into stuff they can do something about and that politicians will help them with, like stopping gay marriage and any regulation of guns.

The interest in guns and religion wasn't caused by economic bad times. But it's a good way of distracting voters from thinking as hard about how to solve economic problems.

Obama, as he has clarified, was merely saying that people are pissed off, and politicians have exploited their anger over issues like gun control and "religious values" and immigration and race, to get them to vote against their own economic interests.

Granted, he didn't say it very well, but he was in a private fund-raising event in San Francisco. Anyone who misrepresents what he's saying as being "anti-gun" or "anti-religion" at this point is either unaware of the facts, stupid, or willfully misrepresenting Obama's statements to score political points (eg, Hillary Clinton, Bill Kristol). I think people are starting to see through this game, though. Reasonable people like Obama too much, and the more these outlandish accusations are thrown at him, the better he's going to look when he rises above them.

Point well missed, but thats the problem with every one taking this one dumb quote as some kind of Obama bible.

The point is, that voting for your own economic interest has been dead for decades. The only people who listen and really do something are interest groups like the NRA. So vote for the NRA and you at least get something tangible from the government. Pols like Hillary wont do anything and you know it.

Im more interested in Vittergate and why adult diaper baby hasnt resigned.

But does anyone really think that stagnant wages and globalization are responsible for rural gun culture? Or the rise of the Christian right? Or an increase in bigotry?

No.

But you just wrote a really dumbass post attacking that very strawman.

Good job, Kevin.

Jesus Kevin, I'm not an Obamabot, but my god man. Read 'What's the matter with Kansas' and come back and repost.

"It's just that it was largely unnoticed until liberals started trying to take guns away in the 60s and 70s."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nice to spout NRA talking points. There are those wanting the sale of guns more carefully vetted. Some want handguns regulated so that you can't pick one up for 20 bucks on a street corner. Some want people of verifiable mental incapacity or those abusing drugs and alcohol kept away from guns. Some say carrying a concealed weapon in public should require special permission. Very few advocate zero ownership of any type of firearm by anyone in the public, thereby leaving at a minimum ownership of rifles for home protection. "take away guns" is unnecessarily inflammatory and certainly inaccurate. I assume you were being sarcastic or flip, no?

Once you clear out all the meta-clutter, though, what really strikes me as odd about Obama's statement is that, on its merits, it's largely untrue, isn't it?

No, Obama's simply paraphrasing "What's the Matter with Kansas."

Bigotry, fear, and superstition are how corrupt politicians get insecure voters to vote against their interests.

This is not news. What's news is that a major party candidate just said it out loud, so the establishment is freaking out.
.

"Once you clear out all the meta-clutter, though, what really strikes me as odd about Obama's statement is that, on its merits, it's largely untrue, isn't it? "

What he said was, for the most part, true. I've lived in that small-town America for the last 25 years, and guns and religion, coupled with rabid anti-immigration sentiment is all anyone talks about at the local coffee shop. Obama nailed it, and for that he gets slammed. Small town people don't like to see themselves in mirrors, just has Bush has probably all mirrors from the White House.

Kevin, you really need to get out and see the world.

Obama's point, apparently lost on Kevin, is that all those things -- guns, religion, whatever -- are long-standing fixtures of American culture. Economic hard times did not create them. (That's an idiotic reading.) But, political frustration (not hard times, per se) has led to people voting on guns and religion, rather than on economics.

Whether Obama was being condescending or elitist or pandering or whatever, I don't know.

A better question is whether you are being an asshole, lazy, or just clueless.

Seriously, Kevin: try to avoid stepping into the shitpiles that others lay for you. Do you want to be next Amy Sullivan?

Granted, he didn't say it very well, but he was in a private fund-raising event in San Francisco.

Obama also said it four years ago in a non-San Francisco location.

But there's Hillary, playing the "San Francisco" card today, just like a Republican.
.

Conversely, weekends at the Cape seem to foster an insane obliviousness (Chris? Tim?) to the bleakness of the prospects faced by many Americans. When your kid's only road to college includes a stop in Iraq, when you hope that your aged parent's final illness is quick and cheap, when you see your job heading south, DESPITE doing everything the way you were taught to do things . . .
Actually, the Parade wage survey is a pretty good tell. The more millions someone makes, the more ephemeral their career: 500 cops, paramedics. teachers or hospice nurses won't make as much as Miley Cyrus.

kevin if you can extract your pampered ass from Malibu for a weewk or two and actually talk to or spend time with the people that Obama was talking about you might find that your elitist viewpont of how they really think is off base. There's an old sayingt"some people need a plexiglass window in their stomachs to see where they're going". Figure it out.

I’ll play devils’ advocate and defend Obama on this point:

What Obama is saying basically describes American politics from 1964 to today: White, middle-class resentment. This is where the whole term MAR (Middle American Radicals) springs from. And it’s a resentment born of then sense that people who live in small towns, mid-sized factory towns (like the one I grew up in, Beloit, Wisconsin) and urban ethnic neighborhoods have no control over their lives and are at the mercy of trends both economic, cultural and political.

I hate to break the news to everyone, but politics in the U.S. in this day and age is about stoking fears and resentments. Both sides do it. Anyone who believes (as many neocons apparently do) that politics is this grand clash of ideas is foolish and stupid because as we have seen both parties believe in a grand consensus of free trade, foreign interventionism and big governments. Anyone who questions this consensus (like Ron Paul and Mike Gravel for example) is regarded as a loony not to be taken seriously. So politics is not about ideas, it’s about using fear and resentment to motivate different blocs of voters to vote for the candidates that only winds up hurting their interests in the end. Dr. Thomas Fleming said as much in his Chronicles column a few months back. Fear and resentment are very powerful motivators. Obama basically said what political consultants already know. We just don’t like to hear it.

Could he have worded it better? Perhaps. But I’m sure we know of or are folk who “cling� to their Bibles as hard as they can because we have faith and when Charlton Heston (RIP) says “you can take my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers� you can bet he’s clinging to it pretty hard. To “cling� means to hold on tight and I’m sure we either are or know people who hold fast to their guns and Bibles.

And why do they? Because in many cases, it’s all they’ve got. And such persons have every right to be bitter. Bitter about seeing their jobs go to Mexico. Bitter about seeing their kids bused from their neighborhood schools to ones across town. Bitter about seeing their values mocked in the wider culture. Bitter about being lied to about the benefits of NAFTA or the Iraq war and the supposed $1.00 a gallon gas we told we would be paying. Bitter about seeing THEIR kids go to war and die while the elites stay in the club box cheering them on. Bitter about seeing their towns socially engineered with the influx of immigrants without any kind of discussion as to whether this a good idea or not. Bitter about being let down by both the Democrats and Republicans, who supposedly talk good games on the issues they care about but in the end do nothing to help despite such empty promises.

Why else would Hilary Clinton repudiate the one concrete accomplishment of her husband’s Administration, the passage of NAFTA through Congress, unless she knew that bitterness existed? Shouldn’t she be celebrtating NAFTA’s benefits? She knows full damn well if she did that in Pennsylvania and Ohio they’d run her out of town on a rail. So she’ll down a boilermaker and pretend she’s one of the guys, this gal born of the upscale Chicago suburbs, a former Goldwater Girl and Wellsley and Yale Law School graduate. Yes, she truly is the salt of the earth. And of course there’s man-of-the people John McCain, the son and grandson of Admirals who was born on a tropical estate in the Canal Zone and who once told a South Carolina textile worker concerned about keeping his job and I quote “I didn’t know you’re biggest ambition in life is to work in the mill.� How is this any less condescending that what Obama said?

I said the same thing on my post about MARs: MARs fear. And they have good reason to fear, because they don’t know what blow is coming next. What they want more than anything is some sort of stability, so they don’t have to worry if they’re going to be out of work, or if their gun will be confiscated or they can’t pray even in their own churches. Maybe such fears seem irrational, but given the amount of cultural, economic and political changes over the past 45 years that has buffeted such communities, such fears can’t be discounted. The political consultants and politicians and exploit those fears every election cycle, because they know they exists and they know they can exploit them.

So Obama clumsly said what everyone knows to be true but doesn’t want to admit because that would spoil some sort of twisted image of Heartland America being a happy place of pure American values and virtues instead of pockets of seething bitterness. Yes the former can be true but the latter as just as true and if it wasn’t then the populist movement, the KKK, the religious right, the Prohibition movement, the veterans movement after World War II, Harlan County, Kentucky, labor strife, Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus, Tim McVeigh, Oklahoma City and militia movement, the George Wallace, Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan and David Duke camapaigns, none of these things would have happened.

It’s good in a way that the primaries in Pennsylvania and Ohio and focused on the problems of America’s industrial heartland but those persons covering it have done so in their usual ham-handed and clumsly way, like they were commenting on the antics of an animal exhibit at the zoo. It’s hard for elites in the MSM to truly understand American’s small towns and rural areas because they don’t live there. They don’t know people there. Perhaps a few of them grew up in such places but they decided that working in the mill or on the farm or at the convience store or the auto garage wasn’t for them so they moved out and upwards to Ivy League educations and posh East Side apartments or Georgetown town homes. Maybe its true that Obama, like Daniel Larison said in his blog Eunomia, sees himself as sort of amabassador for MARs to the elites to try an explain why they vote the way they do. But I’ll at least give Obama credit for being more perceptive about American politics than a thousand brain dead political reporters have been.

Your answer is proof that manufactured outrage works on Dems as well as ditto heads. This is the last gasp of HRC to try and take down BHO...and it might have worked if ginned up by someone with more credibility.

I think the loss of manufacturing jobs has entrenched gun culture because that's what is left -- no one in my neighborhood made a big deal about guns or hunting when I was a kid in W.Pa., even though many of my neighbors did hunt. Now, it's a badge of identification to own guns, and to a lesser extent, hunt (which actually takes patience and skill and involves getting up early and freezing your buns off so it's less popular). There's more of a divide between people who own guns and hunt and people who don't.

I've lived in that small-town America for the last 25 years, and guns and religion, coupled with rabid anti-immigration sentiment is all anyone talks about at the local coffee shop. Obama nailed it, and for that he gets slammed.

I've seen it in suburban Texas for twenty years.

Obama should have said "they're just punking your bony ass!" Still would've been true.

But no one in the establishment press wants to talk about how poor whites are their betters' bitch.
.

It ain't the "bitter" part that stings, it's the "cling" part. This is pretty much standard academic/Marxist cant, explaining away the views of the deluded peasants, poor things.

Here's wingnut propagandist Laura Ingraham's indictment of what "liberals" supposedly think, from Eric Alterman's column:

"They think we're stupid. They think our churchgoing is stupid. They think our flag-flying is stupid...They think where we live--anywhere but in or near a few major cities--is stupid...They think owning a gun is stupid. They think our abiding belief in the goodness of America and its founding principles is stupid."

So Obama goes to a high-dollar fundraiser in Marin, and (thinking he's not being recorded), basically gives them the whole thing. Oh, except for the Founding Fathers, whom Rev. Wright attacks over the weekend.

He's just half-baked is the problem, and anybody who kids him- or herself that this isn't a problem just hasn't been paying attention since, oh, 1968 or so.

...It's just that it was largely unnoticed until liberals started trying to take guns away in the 60s and 70s. The rise of the Christian right has lots of causes, but it's part of a long American religious tradition that has very little to do with the ups and downs of the economy. And bigotry hasn't increased in the past 25 years, so that part doesn't even make sense on its own terms.

My knowledge of the historical context of this issue is nonexistent, but the statement above sounds awfully close to what any Republican or a Fox News hack would say. Are we to conclude that the Fox News is fair and balanced after all?

This is the last gasp of HRC to try and take down BHO...and it might have worked if ginned up by someone with more credibility.

It might've worked if it hadn't come out on Friday.

By this morning, MSNBC had video of Hillary's audience groaning at her for this shit.

They know she doesn't believe this crap.
.

The majority of your commenters (and Robert Reich) have got this right and you've missed the boat on this one Kevin. I don't think Obama meant there was a neat one for one correlation between economic instability and the list of concerns he highlighted, but does anyone really doubt that when people's economic security is at risk, when they feel it's NOT likely their children will do as well as - let alone better than - their fathers and mothers, then they will be less tolerant and generous, less open to new and foreign ideas and people. How many historians would deny that the economics of post WW I Germany helped set the stage for the nativist, militarist politics that followed ?
It may have been inartfully expressed, but the gist of the idea seems quite logical. Preferring the empirical, I'm sure it's not hard to find studies and statistics that support the larger point.

Kevin,
You might want to check out the hate group stats for some states with lots of out of work folks. The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps pretty good track of this sort of stuff. If I remember correctly, Pennsylvania and Indiana both rank pretty high for numbers of represented groups, as do Texas and California. I think in places like Indiana and Pennsylvania where the manufacturing jobs have evaporated, there probably is a correlation to increasing bigotry. It's probably human nature to need someone to blame or look down our nose at.

1) Obama was condescending. Even he admits it. His words were very poorly chosen. Let's just get that out of the way.

2) He was also absolutely right. The politicians line their own pockets and those of their hedge fund managers at the expense of working people. This is as it ever was.

3) To distract people from the righteous anger they feel about #2, they crank up the social issues. Again, this is as it ever was.

4) Hilbot and McCain are making Obama's point for him by trying to make hay out of this.

5) Obama should stay on the offensive here. Every time they bring it up, say "See!? Instead of talking about why your jobs left, they want to do the FOX News sideshow!"
And every time he's accused of being elitist, say this: "Again and again, throughout the course of this campaign, the American people have proven they have a clear-eyed understanding of the problems this country faces. They don't need me or anyone else to dumb things down. In fact, I'm constantly hearing from people who appreciate a little honest discourse. So, I'm sorry Senator/Sean/Rush/Wolf, I'm not going to dumb things down for you."

But does anyone really think that stagnant wages and globalization are responsible for rural gun culture? Or the rise of the Christian right? Or an increase in bigotry?

Yes, they do. When the people's faith in government as an institution fails, they turn to other institutions they can believe in, like local traditions or their church.

The belief that the federal government exists solely in order to enrich black people at the expense of whites is out there. Can you think of a better explanation for this belief? They're alienated from their government so they retreat into a clan. Their clan feels the same way as they do, like the government doesn't care about them. So the government must care about the other clans instead.

Sunday, on one of the four news shows I watched I saw/heard the entire verbal paragraph of the Obama comment. It clearly, in context, made sense and rang true. People who feel left out, over looked or worse yet, screwed over by society tend to attach themselves to ideas and ways of thinking that are familiar and give comfort. Republicans have been taking advantage of this for years with their Gods, guns and gays campaigns.

I knew immediately what Obama meant and he was right. BUT, the lead up to, the support of, "the money quote" is many sentences in length and except in that one instance is always edited out of the dozen or so stories I have heard referring to it.

And so the theme out of the Clinton campaign is that Obama is an elitist while HRC, slugging down Boiler Makers in a PA bar (made with Crown Royal), is not. WHAT?

In the mid 1990s, I had a neighbor who was a young reporter for the city's top news radio station. On the topic of politics and the press he told me that veteran candidates speak in short declarative sentences. Never build up to your point with premises that if edited out leave your key point unclear. If it can't fit on a bumper sticker, don't say it.

Surely then there is a lesson for Obama - talk with the press, and stupid people, in mind.

It's been said that we get the government we deserve. Yup.

What Obama should say:

Don't you wish Clinton and McCain would show even half as much enthusiasm for protecting workers as they do attacking me?

Good news: a mainstream candidate is pulling the sheet off the GOD GUNS GAYS machine.

Bad news: Obama should have focussed on the corrupt politicans, not their marks. No one likes to be called a mark, but they'll gladly run from a con man and pretend they were never conned ...

... just like so many people have done on WMD in Iraq.
.

Honestpartisan nails it in one. The point isn't that economic hardship causes people to turn to religion or develop a rural gun culture: The point is that, if neither party is doing anything about stagnating middle-class wages - if both parties have offered little more than "I feel your pain" pablum for twenty years - then voters will choose the candidate they'd rather have a beer with, i.e. the one who claims to share their beliefs.

There's no incentive for these voters to consider economic issues, because they keep getting squeezed regardless... and by now they're profoundly cynical when candidates show up at their doorstep every election cycle and promise to change things. The good news for Obama is that voters are also increasingly cynical about the politicians who claim to share their values - especially when the claims are laughably false, as with Hillary's sudden embrace of her inner Elmer Fudd.

Have you been outside of California recently? His point is entirely valid--he loses style points for creating some overly callous-sounding soundbytes, but he's scratching at something important. These people are tired of having their collective chain yanked by Republicans and Democrats. When they go to vote, is it any suprise that they vote their fears instead of their hopes? Of course, it doesn't help that their fears have been exploited, but there's no trust in the status quo regardless.

If you had listened to his speech to a steelworkers local in Steelton, PA over the weekend, you would have understood this. He shows that he gets it; what's more, his audience gets that Obama gets it.

Wow, everyone here is right on the money.

In a way you almost have to admire the Republican plan - take away the people's bread and then convince them the Democrats want to take away their circuses.

Take the public's money and then distract them by telling them "forget that for a minute, those scummy Liberals are trying to take away your (guns, faith, kids, whatever they hold dear)."

This is very difficult to combat, even with normally sensible people. The authoritarians are pretty much a lost cause in the short run.

They think we're stupid. They think our churchgoing is stupid. They think our flag-flying is stupid...They think where we live

If Obama were stupid, he wouldn't try to explain it to them.

It's parasites like Ingraham who think Americans are stupid, 'cause they keep pulling the same ploys.

Too often, they're right.
.

Sen. Obama was being a sociologist.

My country is trillions of dollars in debt. Its industrial base is gone. It now stands for agression and torture. Its system of checks and balances is barely alive. On scientific issues such as stem-cell research and global climate change, it has gone AWOL. It spends vastly more on health care than any other nation in the world, but covers less and less of its population. Ordinary people see their pensions disappearing and their health care costs rising, while failed CEOs walk away with millions. And on and on.

But, hey, I'm not bitter. I fly my flag and wear my pin. I've got a "power of pride" bumper sticker on my pickup. I've got my Bible and my gun, a six-pack in the fridge and sports on my hi-def. And I know who to hate: the foreigners sneaking in for welfare benefits and the liberals supporting the islamo-fascists. I know because Rush and Savage tell me so.

I vote for real men, like George W. Bush (a war hero and cowboy, as well as a truly "compassionate conservative" who would never hurt anyone) and John McCain (a self-made man who would never abandon his family, as well as a really "straight-talker" who would never change his positions).

Thank God we now know that Barack Obama is both a a Marxist and a Muslim, a fake Christian whose hate-filled pastor doesn't appreciate how blacks in America actually benefitted from slavery and segregation, and an elitist who bowls poorly and drinks (God forgive me for saying this) orange juice.

An early, frontrunning effort for Kevin's weakest post of the week.

Obama was actually pretty spot-on, if you see him saying the intensity and tenacity of rural gun culture, rural racism, etc., continues to hold on or even get stronger.

Grand Moff Texan,

In general Social Dominators seek out the gullible and exploit them. One way to do that, obviously, is to convince them "those guys over there think you're stupid . . . and the rest of the rant."

Remember how convinced the gun owners were that Kerry wanted to take their guns, even though Kerry was a hunter with no intention of taking their guns?

"Truth" is a poor defense against this prejudice and slander.

If we really really wanted to create a country of mostly tolerant liberals we need to raise everyone's standard of living and put is security-producing safety nets like pensions and healthcare. The problem is that instead of rising up to Denmark our country has been sinking down to Pakistan.

The ultra-rich and their minion Republican party know exactly how to manipulate and control the poor on the way down.

From Dave Lindorf in today's Counterpunch:

In 1992, neighbors in Spencer told me they were voting for George H. W. Bush-a patrician blue blood if ever there was one-because Bill Clinton, if elected "would take away our guns."

Irvine is not Zenith.

Unfortunately, being a sociologist is not his job. His job is to win the general, and comments like this don't help.

Over and over I've seen this referred to in terms of the "bitter" comment. But the real insult is the "cling" part of it which implies weakness on the part of rural voters.

This was a gaffe and his efforts to pull another W.O.R.M. at the faith forum was silly. RE Scripture and "Clinging to what is good" like he was really complimenting the voters? Please. I can see how that applies to faith, but it will take some serious spin to put guns and xenophobia in the same category.

An early, frontrunning effort for Kevin's weakest post of the week.

Yeah but you must admit the comments have been excellent. Really good job people.

But the real insult is the "cling" part of it which implies weakness on the part of rural voters.

Time to call a spade a spade. If rural voters use this as an excuse to go back to their abusers, then fuck them anyway.

"Oz didn't make you a bitch. You were born that way."
.

I'm amazed at how many people on this blog feel it necessary to explain, in great length, what it was that Obama was TRYING to get at.

People, you can twist yourselves into pretzels. But your rationalizing on a progressive blog, to essentially elitist liberals, is a waste of your time. It is JSUT THIS elitist attitude - you, with your superior intellect, can explain away all the lower class ill political choices - is what pisses blue collar democrats off.

Obama blundered. Period. And given that his support with blue collar dems was weak prior to this gaffe, this will only make it weaker. And you can be that in the GE, if Obama is the chosen one, that the Reps will make hay with this, and the Dems will lose the white house.

Now this incident isn't quite up to par with a bimbo, or dill pickle sucking while wearing tin foil hat, but it leaves him a lot less wiggle room.

I guess I read it a bit differently than Kevin. I think what he meant to say is along the lines of what Howard Dean said, which is that people are in economic distress, don't think ANYONE in government is listening to them about his economic distress, and thus end up voting on other issues they think at least some people (Repubs) are listening to them about: those being god, guns and gays.

OK, if you guys will listen for a while, instead of calling me a troll, idiot, or numbskull, I will try to explain why his remarks are so offensive to this religious conservative.

The way I interpret his statement was:

OK. You have had economics of your life neglected. After all economics is all anyone who is rational is really interested in. So since you weren't getting any attention from the government about the economic issues of your life, you turned to these unimportant things to vote on. Unimportant things like second amendment rights, religion, or border enforcement.

Don't you see that what he has done here is said "Religious voter, you're being irrational and stupid." "Second amendment voter, you're being irrational and stupid." "Border enforcement voter, you're being irrational and stupid."

In every explanation I have heard, he has just cemented this position as coming from his real beliefs. And this viewpoint has been supported by some of the commenters on this board.

Please forgive me, but this is the narrow viewpoint of the liberal left on display. You can't see past your own narrow economic and (in the sense that Marx thought all was about economics) Marxist point of view. You dismiss religion, second amendment rights and border enforcement as non-issues that all smart people would neglect in their voting decisions. And probably some of you have gotten to the bottom of this post, and still do not understand the problem of your blindness. Therefore you say, "I see", and yet your ignorance remains.

Kevin, thanks for the post and you're absolutely correct about Obama's comments which is why the comments were so offensive. Obama's comments presume things that are not true. People support abolishing abortion because they have a different view point on life. Hunters like guns because they like to hunt and shoot and because guns are a part of their culture People look to religion because sometimes that's the only thing they have that provides unconditional support. Immigration limitations makes sense, not providing licenses to undocumented people who are breaking US immigration laws.

To say that "bitterness" drives these things is plain stupid and Obama's comments (among many other things)are just another example of why he will not prevail in a general election. This is the old democrat playbook of rationalizing the Republican's past victories as victories based on "wedge" issues when the real issue is that democrats are out of touch with middle America and the South. Obama's statements are the old biases that democrats continue to be pegged with and which continue to cost democrats elections.

Drum: But does anyone really think that stagnant wages and globalization are responsible for rural gun culture? Or the rise of the Christian right? Or an increase in bigotry? This stuff just doesn't seem to be related to recent economic distress in any serious way at all.

...*tripping over Godwin's Law*...

Germany in the 1920s and 30s would be a counterexample to your statement, Kev.

I really, really hate making that comparison, but you asked.

Obama simply handed the GOP the wedge it needs to divide the Democrats from the so-called "value voters." Goodbye, value voters. Hello, President McCain.

I'm amazed at how many people on this blog feel it necessary to explain, in great length, what it was that Obama was TRYING to get at.

Um, no. We've said how we would have said it, and Obama has continued to amplify it.

And if "attitude" is more important to you than policy, you deserve to get punked ...

... again.

Thanks for being "exhibit A" in the "who falls for this ignorant shit?" category.
.

Sen. Obama did not make his sociological analysis part of a stump speech that he repeats over and over. Mostly this 'controversy' is being repeated over and over on cable news, which few people actually watch.

Those who have become familiar with the 'controversy' from listening to conservative talk radio were not going to vote for a Democrat anyway. Economic pain has become so acute for the flag waving, gun toting typical American bigot, that callling them bitter is still going to resonate with many of them who have not been completely consumed by neoconservative parasites.

You dismiss religion, second amendment rights and border enforcement as non-issues that all smart people would neglect in their voting decisions.

No, we dismiss people who are stupid enough to be conned by empty religious rhetoric.

We dismiss people who think Democrats are coming to take their guns away.

We dismiss people who think the right is going to keep the Mexicans out when they've shown they won't.

Yeah: you're prettying fucking stupid. And we're sick of paying for your dumb ass. That's not condescension, that's exasperation. I'm sick of the dead-weight ignorant filth dragging this country down.
.

I dont think he was wrong, I think he made very incomplete statements which opened him to attack.
What he was trying to answer I believe, albeit in a very clumsy manner, was what Bill Clinton answered years ago and what many Democrats have wondered and speculated about: why do working class people vote Republican when that is clearly against their own economic self interests? Up until Reagan they did vote their economic self-interests. Then they stopped. Why? Clinton's answer was that Republicans push hot button topics like abortion, guns, religion, gays and immigrants to 'anger' such voters into voting a single emotional issue over what helps them and their families economically. That was the better answer. Obama's main folly was failing to connect the dots to Republicans instead of making it more of a philisophical issue which sounded like a denigration of the interests of working class voters. Former conservative pundit Kevin Phillips gave pretty much the same analysis as Clinton did in one of his more recent books, I believe, and I believe it to be largely correct.

Again, Obama didnt go far enough and make it a Republicans pushing hot button topics issue. That was his blunder. And it was a blunder. You have to be more careful with your words as they will be parsed remorselessly.

and still do not understand the problem of your blindness

Maybe it was my blindness - but I didn't see anybody calling anybody "irrational and stupid" - excpet for you. Does you bitterness cause you to put words in other peoples mouths so that you can then have cause to be offended by them?

"I'm sick of the dead-weight ignorant filth dragging this country down." - Grand Moff Texan

Well then, maybe you should emigrate. Try the South Pole - lots of hoi polloi scientists live there.

John Hansen: ..you turned to these unimportant things to vote on. Unimportant things like second amendment rights, religion, or border enforcement.

Excepting that, in fact, Obama never said they were 'unimportant', John Hansen...Only that he had a hard time pitching his message to folks driven by cynicism to cling to those items, 'cause there wasn't much solace elsewhere.

Don't you see that what he has done here is said...you're being irrational and stupid.

If the shoe fits...what else do you tell someone - if you're being straight with them - who continues to vote against their own interests? It's a hard thing to hear, yes, and not something someone running for office has an easy time saying.

And this viewpoint has been supported by some of the commenters on this board.

Well, yes.

You can't see...(blah blah blah)...

I did read to the end of your post, John Hansen; hence the 'blah blah blah'.

Maybe it was my blindness - but I didn't see anybody calling anybody "irrational and stupid" - excpet for you.

Laura Ingraham already got to him. Liberals are looking down their noses at him, apparently.

Poor whiny little bitch.
.

The first "anti-" part of Obama's mistake was more or less a lie. The second "anti-" part was certainly interesting, considering that he supports a highly questionable and highly secretive Bush trade scheme.

[Note: WM and/or KD have a habit of deleting or editing comments without notice, so this comment may disappear or be different from what I posted.]

I agree with leslie - and I think this is a reason why I would support Obama - Obama supports free trade, and doesn't hide the fact that he does. Clinton may or may not support free trade, and it's not possible to truly know if she does.

"John Hansen"

Gee, got your panties in a bunch about name calling?

The way I interpret his statement was:

That means it is fair game to attack you particular kind of "bias" because you don't pretend to be "objective." Do you really think a politician of either party would arbitrarily demean and disrespect rural voters and citizens? I don't think McCain would. I don't think there was a Republican running who had that issue--certainly, Mike Huckabee was probably the closest thing there was to a "populist" on the Republican side. But none of them expressed disgust at rural Americans. Now, they did a pretty good job of acting disgusted at liberals who are also Americans, but hey--you can't expect consistency.

OK. You have had economics of your life neglected. After all economics is all anyone who is rational is really interested in. So since you weren't getting any attention from the government about the economic issues of your life, you turned to these unimportant things to vote on. Unimportant things like second amendment rights, religion, or border enforcement.

You mean the wedge issues used to divide Americans? Like, I don't know--the Constitutional Amendment to ban flag burning? Abortion? Prayer in school? Gay marriage? You see, it's this simple--not a single one of those issues has a direct impact on the economic well being of the average American. If you can't get a job, pay for a mortgage, put your kid through school, and save for your retirement, you're not advancing through life. You're treading water, in a lot of cases, trying to make ends meet.

In the Arab world, this is what they do to inflame the masses and ensure that the totalitarian government of country X is never overthrown--all you have to do is say, "you are poor because of Israel, because of the decadence of the West, because of American gangsters" and stage a few riots and everyone goes back to simmering resentment against the wrong people for the reason as to why they don't have jobs, money, or a decent standard of living. Funny how Republicans use exactly the same tactics. Funny how we've seen the war on terror turned into a Fox News miniseries, coming up on seven years in heavy rotation now, with color coded scare slides, ominous music, bloody graphics and super-serious sumbitches telling us a guy who can't even find boots and a uniform is the second coming of a Jihadist Rambo. Is this all a Coinkydink?

Don't you see that what he has done here is said "Religious voter, you're being irrational and stupid." "Second amendment voter, you're being irrational and stupid." "Border enforcement voter, you're being irrational and stupid."

Well, yeah. Because religion isn't the reason why you lost your factory job. Wanna own guns? Go ahead--the only guns Democrats want to take away are the handguns or assault rifles used by criminals in large urban areas. Poor people coming to this country from Mexico to do jobs most Americans won't do aren't the problem, either. In fact, "poor people" aren't the problem in this society. They're just trying to get by.

In every explanation I have heard, he has just cemented this position as coming from his real beliefs. And this viewpoint has been supported by some of the commenters on this board.

What are his real beliefs? That good people have been led astray by lying assholes who want to distract people from the real reason as to why they don't have jobs, health care, education for their kids and a government that will protect them from standing water?

Please forgive me, but this is the narrow viewpoint of the liberal left on display. You can't see past your own narrow economic and (in the sense that Marx thought all was about economics) Marxist point of view. You dismiss religion, second amendment rights and border enforcement as non-issues that all smart people would neglect in their voting decisions. And probably some of you have gotten to the bottom of this post, and still do not understand the problem of your blindness. Therefore you say, "I see", and yet your ignorance remains.

Oh, fuck off with "Karl Marx" and all that shit. Marxism is a dead, discredited and abandoned philosophy that has no serious cachet in the modern world. Even the Cubans are quietly abandoning what little Marxism they were still trying to practice.

I will solve your 2nd Amendment, border control, and religion issue with one sentence, asshole:

Would Jesus shoot a poor man for being hungry?

No, he would not.

Now, grow up and quit wasting everyone's time.

I think everything Obama said is on the mark. The truth is - Americans don't like to hear the truth about themselves. They prefer a gauzy film of lies about how exceptional we are and how God blesses America (but apparently doesn't bless anyone else except maybe Israel and then only kinda). They like to hear how "free" we are (whatever that means) and how "brave" we are (even though people in Russia, Iraq and Viet Nam have had to be a lot braver over the last 100 years). They like to hear we have the highest standard of living (we don't) and the best health care (also not true) and the best government (highly questionable).

In short, Americans like to be told lies. Generally, the best liar is elected president. This has certainly been true the past 50 years and it likely will hold true through the 2008 cycle. Get ready for President McCain!!!

Well then, maybe you should emigrate. Try the South Pole - lots of hoi polloi scientists live there.

"Hoi polloi" means "the masses." It does not mean "fancy people." In fact, that's the opposite of what you think it means ... dumbass.

Welcome to western civilization, glad you could join us.

Now that US hegemony has been squandered, it's going to take real work to get it back. The bone-in-the-nose creationists don't have the skills that will take, nor are they likely to develop same.

Can't afford stupid any more, no matter how much the GOP's southern strategy relied on it.
.

Would Jesus shoot a poor man for being hungry?

There are so few Christians in America that this is not a fair question anymore.
.

Would Jesus shoot a poor man for being hungry?

Just to clarify, I originally wrote that sentence as "would Jesus shoot a poor Mexican for being hungry," but I changed it because I thought that was too provocative and too narrowly focused on one ethnic group. I think a lot of the people who come here do so because they want a better life. They don't come here because they have some sort of evil Hispanic jihadist islamocentric by way of Roman Catholicism sort of agenda.

This idea that rural people aren't smart enough to see through Republican bullshit spin is laughable--hasn't Bush been at %31 approval and dropping for the longest time?

Here's my take: what Obama is saying is that economic distress leaves voters more susceptible to the "god, guns and gays" diversions of the right, rather than concentrating on issues that directly effect their pocketbook.

Pale Rider on April 14, 2008 at 3:39 PM:

This idea that rural people aren't smart enough to see through Republican bullshit spin is laughable..

Ha-ha, very funny, Pale.

But it's not just rural people. It's everywhere, really; suburbs, cities, country, wev...

Me Lose Brain?

Exactly. They WANT to talk about Obama all day long.

They DO NOT want to talk about gas being 3.50 a gallon and rising.

Obama was correct; you are not.

Guys,

I really wish we'd start using the proper terminology or immoral people like John Hansen will continue to twist our words and use them against us.

Granted he will always try that but we don't need to hand him ammunition.

People who make decisions based on emotional reasons are not stupid. People who accept whatever their leaders tell them are not stupid either. The proper term for the second group is 'authoritarian.' They are gullible and willfully ignorant, they lack normal reasoning ability and are able to keep conflicting ideas in their mind at the same time, but they are not stupid.

In addition to those groups there are Republicans who ARE capable of rational thought and who are actually very intelligent.

We need to stop lumping them all together (Authoritarians do NOT comprise a majority of any of these groups: Rural, Republican, religious or poor) and we must stop accusing them of things they are NOT, because they are simply aching for a chance to prove that all their paranoia and close-mindedness and defensiveness and feelings of persecution are justified.

Regarding the conflict between what authoritarians say and what they do, we need to remember that while many authoritarians claim Jesus and the Bible are the most important things in the world to them they are also very willfully ignorant on these topics.

It is easy to find contradictions between what authoritarians do and what Jesus taught. Sometime it is fun to see how gross the contradictions are.
But pointing out the contradictions to an authoritarian will not persuade him. At most he will reply with a pre-canned slogan and if you continue to press him he'll retreat into his safe echo chamber where everyone simply knows he is right.

Look at the people in LGF. After the last election a few wondered in here to throw a few hand grenades but not a single one stayed around to debate. They suck at debating. That is why they do not allow an opposing comment on their blog.

Apparently Obama was preaching to the choir who already know what's wrong with Kansas, and much of rural America.

What's wrong with a lot of America is too many years under Republican rule.

It was bad wording from someone who specializes in good wording so most folks are surprised at the gracelessness of it.

Pigeon-holing any belief, rational or irrational, to a single or small set of causes makes for interesting reading. Reality, though, tends to be more complex.

What Obama meant to say is what I think he should have said instead of what he actually said.

OK, if you guys will listen for a while, instead of calling me a troll, idiot, or numbskull,

That will require that you stop being an idiotic, numbskull troll.

What Obama meant to say is what I think he should have said instead of what he actually said.

Funny, he keeps saying it. And amplifying it.

It's about time we started laughing at the GOP's bitches.
.

"I'm sick of the dead-weight ignorant filth dragging this country down."

And this statement is indistinguishable from any made by Cheney and Rove as they discussed stealing the next election. Makes a pretty convincing argument for out-of-touch elitism, doesn't it?

I think grand moff texan's meds are a little off today. He keeps missing the irony.

Pale Rider writes: I originally wrote that sentence as "would Jesus shoot a poor Mexican for being hungry," but I changed it because I thought that was too provocative and too narrowly focused on one ethnic group. I think a lot of the people who come here do so because they want a better life. They don't come here because they have some sort of evil Hispanic jihadist islamocentric by way of Roman Catholicism sort of agenda.

Cute, but that's not really what the issue is about (even though Islam is gaining throughout LatinAmerica). The issue is things like this. MassiveImmigration leads to more power for people who shouldn't have any power to begin with.

And, needless to say, only a very small number of people who have no power are calling for border crossers to be shot. I don't know for sure what Jesus would say. But, I tend to think he'd expose those who try to present allowing IllegalImmigration as humanitarian for the fakes they are.

[Note: WM and/or KD have a habit of deleting or editing comments without notice, so this comment may disappear or be different from what I posted.]

Kevin said:
>anti-immigrant sentiment ... is primarily rooted in
>the simple fact that we have a lot more illegal
>immigrants today than we did 15 years ago

Is this really true? I think, at the very least, it's more complicated than that. Some anti-illegal sentiment is clearly anti-immigrant sentiment, not that well disguised, and for those people, it's the number of legals+illegals that's significant.

*

Economic stress and insecurity leads to ethnonationalism and cultural chauvinism. This causal relationship is as true in Parma, OH as it is in Belgrade.

I live in OH. Obama was 100% correct.

Oooooopppppppppsssss

Obama just said Hillary packs a six shooter when she goes duck hunting.

I think that there will be some folks who might find that, well, elitist?

I can just see the smirk on Cheney's face now.

Economic stress and insecurity leads to ethnonationalism and cultural chauvinism. This causal relationship is as true in Parma, OH as it is in Belgrade.

I live in OH. Obama was 100% correct.

I think grand moff texan's meds are a little off today. He keeps missing the irony.

Mistranslation is the new irony?

OK, erm ... and white male is the new "Jew," or so Jonah told me. Man, it's hard to keep up with all this shit.
.

Obama is learning that you can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. The man is falling off his pedestal.

Yep. 'Cause what America really needs is a president in a diaper who can't tell al Qaeda from Iran.
.

Obama knows NOTHING about gangs and why their members do what they do.

He seems to have the Republicans pegged.
.

Obama was spot on, it is the media and Washington D.C. that does not get it. CNN is starting to look like FOX news on this issue.

Gee Kev, you take the prize for missing the point, once again.

Sure I'm bitter...bitter about Clinton's millions, McCain's beer heiress trophy wife, Obama's boyish good looks and gift of gab.

Then there's the bitterness I have about the billions CEO's have accumulated and spend on crazy luxuries life Lear jets, and 400 million dollar yachts, and Bush's insane war which will cost 3-5 trillion and, yes, I'm bitter because I can just about afford my cat food diet and now I worry that Purina might be bought out by some hedge fund. But don't mourn for me, organize.

Heck, I'm bitterness incarnate. But, I decided to move on. I started a group supporting Obama for president. It's called "Bitter People for Obama." Bitter as I am, I think he would be the best president ever.

But does anyone really think that stagnant wages and globalization are responsible for rural gun culture? Or the rise of the Christian right? Or an increase in bigotry? This stuff just doesn't seem to be related to recent economic distress in any serious way at all.

that's not how i took the remark. i didn't think that Sen. Obama was saying that economic frustration was the CAUSE of gun culture, or the political mobilization of the religious right. to me he seemed to be saying that frustration with the gov't in general {not just economic policy} cause the related issues to be more important, and that prolonged frustration causes these issues to become the deciding factor in a person's vote.

to put it another way: when you're not frustrated with the gov't, when you trust the gov't, there are many more issues you can choose from in deciding for whom to vote. you choose based on who you think will keep the gov't working the way you like, maybe overlooking certain specific issues on which you disagree with the candidate.
however, when you no longer trust the gov't, when you lived through 16 years of both political parties in power, then the idea of voting based on who will keep the gov't going in the direction you like seems less reasonable, less possible. so in that instance, you're less forgiving of differences on specific issues, and the "culture war" issues become paramount.

anyway, that's what i heard.
but then i may have gotten latte in my ears.

or, iow, what the first five commenters said.
sorry

Kevin-

You're missing the causality here. It's not that economic dislocation leads to a fetishization of the 2nd Amendment. It's that politicians interpose themselves and re-direct voter anger toward faith/identity/firearms because they don't want to address, or repeatedly fail to address, economic issues.

Obama's making the same "What's a Matter with Kansas?" argument. Some voters have been trained to think that because of the "free market" that politics doesn't have anything to do with economic realities. So they vote on what they do think they can impact.

Obama's got a tough road to cut here, but the punditry's reading of rural voters is infuriatingly flat. There are, after all, brown and black people in rural Pennsylvania. And many will see Obama as an agent of change. The only card the Republicans can play is to remind people that he's black, and hope that people will not only be angry that a black guy is running, but that he's elite. It's the Howard Ford "Uppity Negro" narrative.

Kevin-

You're missing the causality here. It's not that economic dislocation leads to a fetishization of the 2nd Amendment. It's that politicians interpose themselves and re-direct voter anger toward faith/identity/firearms because they don't want to address, or repeatedly fail to address, economic issues.

Obama's making the same "What's a Matter with Kansas?" argument. Some voters have been trained to think that because of the "free market" that politics doesn't have anything to do with economic realities. So they vote on what they do think they can impact.

Obama's got a tough road to cut here, but the punditry's reading of rural voters is infuriatingly flat. There are, after all, brown and black people in rural Pennsylvania. And many will see Obama as an agent of change. The only card the Republicans can play is to remind people that he's black, and hope that people will not only be angry that a black guy is running, but that he's elite. It's the Harold Ford "Uppity Negro" narrative.

Drum:

'Bittergate' does not make sense because it is a false association that is straight out of the Gospel according to Rev. Dr. Jeremiah: hard times and a government that turns a blind eye on it are responsible for bigotry, as well as for Americans being anti-trade, and anti-immigration, pro-guns and God-fearing. The offensive part is the suggestion that people would not be going to church or even hunting if they did not feel jittery about the country's economic woes... As you point out, that is just plainly a non sequitur.

Grand Moff Texan: This is not news. What's news is that a major party candidate just said it out loud, so the establishment is freaking out.

true.

Kevin, you're missing the point, I think. Obama's claim is that people have lost control over a very basic part of their lives …. PaulB at 2:02 PM

…Obama said. “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. 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.�…

The attempt to link the Bush economy to the Clinton economy is also offensive. As all know, the Clinton term was eight years of economic growth and 22 million jobs added while the population to employment ratio fell to its lowest level in years. The Bush term sucks. Obama's implication that both were caused economic stress is dishonest demagoguery

No, Obama's simply paraphrasing "What's the Matter with Kansas." ….Grand Moff Texan at 2:13 PM

….there's Hillary, playing the "San Francisco" card today, just like a Republican…. Grand Moff Texan at 2:16 PM

….What Obama is saying basically describes American politics from 1964 to today: White, middle-class resentment. ….Sean Scallon at 2:17 PM

…Hilbot and McCain are making Obama's point for him by trying to make hay out of this….cazart at 2:26 PM

….Obama was actually pretty spot-on,….SocraticGadfly at 2:52 PM

This "establishment" that is directing the narrative of this election needs to be blown out the door, left penniless by the road, and regarded as the real "elitists."

My personal hope is that Edwards will step up and endorse Obama soon--and that we'll continue having a frank, open, and honest discussion about what the fuck is wrong with this country.

And here's a hint for you wingnuts--what's wrong with this country has nothing to do with poor people.

Obama just said Hillary packs a six shooter when she goes duck hunting.

I think that there will be some folks who might find that, well, elitist?

I can just see the smirk on Cheney's face now.

I realize this is some kind of joke, or sarcasm -- or something -- but seriously, what the fuck are you talking about? I love me some good snark, but this is completely incoherent.

junebug: "I realize this is some kind of joke, or sarcasm -- or something -- but seriously, what the fuck are you talking about? I love me some good snark, but this is completely incoherent."

Generally, one hunts ducks and other game fowl with shotguns, not six-shot repeaters.

Needless to say, Sen. Obama's statements only proved that he should really stick with bowling.

Now, THAT'S snark!

junebug - you need a rifle to shoot a duck.

It's caught on good - McCain camp running with it.
From googling here is quote

In response, McCain’s office issued a fund-raising letter noting the “bitter� remark and calling it “Obama’s liberal, elitist philosophy.� McCain senior adviser Mark Salter also mocked a Sunday retort in which Obama said Clinton is trying to portray herself as a defender of the Second Amendment, an Annie Oakley, sitting in a duck blind and carrying a six shooter.

“It’s hard to keep a straight face when you’re accused of being out of touch by a guy who thinks the whole country is worried about the high price of arugula or that you hunt ducks with a six shooter,� Salter said, noting a past Obama statement to Iowa farmers.

only a very small number of people who have no power are calling for border crossers to be shot

Although only a very small number of people arm themselves and turn out to hunt immigrants at the border, the ability to arm themselves and go hunting for the most dangerous game is about the only power they have. They have no economic or cultural power. They have no political power. Even the candidates they support ideologically will not cede any economic, cultural or political power to them. When people arm themselves and say they want to shoot a dehumanized target, it resonates with many of the other people who have no economic, cultural and political power because of its demonstrated volition within a system with few other outlets for such willfulness.

After the Civil War moribund White Southerners ganged up and lynched Blacks. Mostly, this cultural phenomena resonated with the politically and economically dispossed of the war degraded South. Some might say these White Southerners killed Blacks for pleasure or for some other positive reinforcement, but a psycho-sociological explanation might make a better argument that White Southerners acted out their native racism because it was the only willful power they had available to them.

This type of willful acting out is not confined to politics, men or bigots. Road rage has been explained as the loss of control drivers experience in traffic jams.

Tho it's not nice, I did really get a chuckle out of the arugula dig.

FYI, people don't hunt ducks with "six shooters"-at least normal hunters don't. Making this kind of goofy statement about hunting (as well as the sneeringly sexist Annie Oakley remark) reinforces the point that Obama knows nothing when he talks about any part of America not on a coast or in Chicago (and FWIW, knows jack about many people who live even there). While the remarks he made are well received in the rarified air of some blogs, many Americans hear the insult to themselves when they have their religion and political beliefs described as pablum substitutes for economic success. Obama should, but apparently can't, stop digging.

jeebus - I suspect the next thing will be that the supporters will rationalize that the funny stuff coming out of the big O is only cause he's tired. He just needs a nap. Or maybe a few more days in the Virgin Islands, huh?

Apparently, it's elitist to mock Clinton for her portraying herself as a Second Amendment advocate. Park Ridge IL, the Governor's mansion in AR, Washington, DC, & Chappaqua NY -- all known worldwide as capitals of game hunting & all things outdoors. Silly season is truly upon us.

Annie Oakley could be sitting in a duck blind, with her six-shooter on her hip (since she probably always carried one) and a 12-gauge Winchester automatic across her lap (with the migratory bird plug, of course!).

Obama never would have used these words if he knew they were going to be broadcast to the nation, and a guy who has a good chance to be President who doesn't assume that any words he uses will be broadcast to the nation, and chooses his words accordingly, is behaving stupidly. Note that I did not say Obama was stupid; his response since this fared up has been fairly skilled.

Silly season indeed, junie.

As my mother in law says: Jesus wept and well he might.

As for my reaction, I read Kevin's post with a sinking feeling but was quickly buoyed by the many great comments. And, yeah, Annie Oakley takes those six-shooters off, maybe, at the end of the day. In the duckblind, near her grandaddy's cabin, she'd sure as shootin' have them handy. This image evoked by Obama, incidentally, is funny and demonstrates Obama's sure sense of humor. No distortion. No malice. Just a solid sendup.

Bill Kristol meanwhile, in case anyone cares, loses all connection to reality and reaches for Marx. Karl, that is, not Groucho.

I wonder why these conservative midwesterners voted in 2004 for a deserter rather than a war hero, for a serial screw-up rather than someone with a deep and rich resume. Bitterness over being stuck in a backwater is the only explanation I can find.

Kevin, you either didn't read or didn't think important the entire reason why Obama thought this was an explanation for why it's hard to get working class people to vote for Democrats. They're discouraged about getting any kind of economic benefit from politicians of both parties who keep coming to them and promising to help them and then don't do it. Then they're ripe fruit for Republicans and their wedge issues of "guns, gays and god," (and, of course, there's always race as an underlying, unspoken "submessage" when law'n'order and gun-totin' issues are blurred together). I think that's pretty irrefutably the case. Democrats just aren't able to play those cards.

Is it just the east coast or has it been a bad couple of years for arugula?

jeebus - I suspect the next thing will be that the supporters will rationalize ...

Rationalize what? All we have to do is keep the focus on people stupid enough to vote for a guy in a diaper who can't tell al Qaeda from Iran.

You know, the people who were stupid enough to think Bush would make a great president?

Put that up against Obama and the Republicans' abortion of an ideology will wind up splattered in modern art, just to piss off the hicks.
.

The thesis of the book is that Republicans, stressing 'value' issues like god, guns and gays, and claiming that their opponents are positioned against their values are able to use those as winning wedge issues.

Thank you for restating the obvious. Now use your decoder ring to see how that applies to the statement. You'll be amazed at what you've been missing.

Me? I won't give a shit.
.

Gee, I'm sure glad Barry has all these people here to explain what he actually meant. Cue Lucy or Angellight explaining how Obama is reclaiming America's soul and how the old politics is dying ... 5 ...4 ... 3 ...

Cue Lucy or Angellight explaining how Obama is reclaiming America's soul and how the old politics is dying ... 5 ...4 ... 3 ...

Killing old politics by pulling the sheet off of Republican class warfare? Uh, yeah. You're looking at it.

That's why you're here bitching about it.

Buh-bye!
.

Jeebus on the lot of it.

"anti-immigrant sentiment" -- Okay, here we go again with Dems ignoring the public opinion about immigrations problems - as if Phoenix and it's start up of the Minute-men was somehow a small town disgruntlement? OR that Eliot Spitzer's drivers licenses for illegal immigrants program didn't actually tick-off a lot of New Yorkers, ( and a lot of Americans too) because it did - tick them off. If Obama wants the Repug vote, he'd better learn to speak Repug real quick because illegal immigrantion is a very hot button issue, AND it is hot button issue with more that just Repugs? All you have to do is ask any New York liberals about that drivers licenses deal, right?

AND this is not the first time Obama has shown a very ugly temperament toward those less fortunate, so that it's as if those who lost jobs are to blame for their bitterness instead of cold, indifferent acts by congress, taking lobbiest money from big corporations that want to move jobs overseas.

You know, not all of us can partake of all the wonders of legal bribery only congress can do that. Obama seems to hate the unfortunate the way Reagan hated the homeless, which is in fact, a very un-Democratic like Party behavior, so perhaps Paul Krugman is seeing the real Obama after all. People need more than the audacity of hope, they need a physical paycheck - so I have to wonder if Obama knows the difference?

I can't wait for the next Krugman column - it's going to be an "I told you so" column - and Krugman is going to be right.

Okay, here we go again with Dems ignoring the public opinion about immigrations problems

Which show that it's a minority concern, yes.

No pun intended.

The point is that Republicans use immigration as an issue, but don't do anything about it. That's because the people who own the GOP like cheap labor, and the GOP uses Mexicans to scare poor whites into voting for them anyway. Then the cycle of stupid starts all over again.

To the GOP, the people Obama was talking about are just dumb white trash, here to be used and thrown away. Obama is actually reaching out the way Dean said we should.

Paul Krugman isn't going to explain this to you. 2006 should have explained this to you, but it doesn't seem you were paying attention. The GOP, which still controlled the Congress, publicly announced that they would consider no legislation on immigration but would instead campaign on it.

That is what Obama was talking about: punking the hicks, again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, because the stupid little fuckers will vote for ANYTHING so long as you tell them liberals don't like it.

Just ask the GOP.
.

Killing old politics by pulling the sheet off of Republican class warfare? Uh, yeah. You're looking at it.
That's why you're here bitching about it.
Buh-bye!

Posted by: Grand Moff Texan on April 14, 2008 at 8:24 PM | PERMALINK

Well, someone might think about saying buh-bye. For example, the loser who has been posting here on this subject since 2:13, perhaps?

It’s hard to keep a straight face when you’re accused of being out of touch by a guy who thinks the whole country is worried about the high price of arugula

I've got to admit that cracked me up a bit as well. Kinda similar to Jerry's Prozac and Clamdipâ„¢ comment, somehow...

Fascinating that Obama's statement is subject to so much attempted interpretation. The truth is pretty obivious. He was just honestly expressing his critical opinion of folks in small towns. He and most liberal democrats thinks they are stupid for their views on guns, religion, immigrants and trade. He obviously could not say they were stupid, so he attributed their views to bitterness about economics.

But I think with an adoring press he will be able in the short term to spin his way out of it. Long term, if the economy tanks enough, he probably wins in the general election (although it is a little hard to figure out why anyone would attribute economic expertise to his record).

Otherwise, he probably loses and this statement hurts him some. It is the kind of thing that sticks, since it directly offends people (who will not forget) and it fits with how people already are starting to view Obama (liberal, elitist, cocky, etc.)

Seriously Grand Moff Texan, have you really been sitting at your computer FOR THE LAST FIVE AND HALF HOURS furiously rebutting any hint of criticism of your hero Barry Obama!? Can't understand why they call it a cult! Between screeds are you doodling his name and yours on your notebook in violet ink?

For example, the loser who has been posting here on this subject since 2:13, perhaps?

I keep checking back because it's a target-rich environment for easily-punked bitches like you, yes.

Call it a guilty pleasure. I enjoy humiliating idiots.
.

Speaking of idiots:

have you really been sitting at your computer FOR THE LAST FIVE AND HALF HOURS furiously rebutting any hint of criticism of your hero Barry Obama!?

No, I keep coming back here to see what Sean Hannity has jizzed in your mouth. Kinda like slowing down to look at a car wreck.

I'm sure you're relieved to know this.

And it doesn't have to be "furious" anything. Obama has the luxury of really stupid enemies. For an example, see the next post.
.

PLEASE get a grip, Kevin and everyone else sucked into H. Clinton's tea pot tempest.

Parse it however you like, Kevin, and although the behaviors B. Obama mentioned don't logically follow from one another nor from stagnant trade, that doesn't mean they aren't organically intertwined.

The raw truth is, all you boringly politically correct wussies, is that out there in flyover land, guns and religion and bigotry and walmart-hatred and distrust (if not envy) of coastal elites, media and otherwise, all get kinda mushed-up together, you know, sort of like a stew that's been simmering on the stove a long, long time. Does one cause another? Not likely. Does any one of these LMC behaviors go with any other one? Bingo! You can't miss w/ mix and match. They ALL match.

Jeesh, B. Obama tells the truth (again) and folks-- seems like the ladies, especially -- get their knickers all in a twist. Time to get acquainted with the real world, sweetie pies.

Fascinating that Obama's statement is subject to so much attempted interpretation. The truth is pretty obivious. [sic]

What's "obivious" is that we've been pretty consistent in agreeing with what he said and continues saying. You'll notice that Obama continues to amplify his original point and has only changed the terms. This means that all the carping dittoheads in the world don't scare anyone any more.

He was just honestly expressing his critical opinion of folks in small towns.

Except that you cannot point to a quote to back it up, any more than you can catalog the non-existent variety of interpretations you've alleged. This is because these are the talking points you've been fed and you don't even know what they mean.

This is why you're a Republican: it's the best you could do.

He and most liberal democrats thinks they are stupid for their views on guns, religion, immigrants and trade.

Anyone who thinks that religion is only an answer for frustrations must think that religious people are stupid. That was not Obama's position. I've already shown how people like you were punked on immigration. Stupid is a perfect word for that.

He obviously could not say they were stupid, so he attributed their views to bitterness about economics.

Yes, because it's easy to exploit desperate people's ignorance, bigotry, and metaphysics. Always has been. It's the only way these parasites can run down a first world country.

But I think with an adoring press he will be able in the short term to spin his way out of it.

The "adoring press" keeps calling it a "gaffe," even though he keeps amplifying the statement. Once again, a smarter person fed you your talking points and you're just showing me how much you don't know about the world outside your mother's basement.

It is the kind of thing that sticks, since it directly offends people (who will not forget) and it fits with how people already are starting to view Obama (liberal, elitist, cocky, etc.)

"Liberal," even though you can't define it. "Elitist," because he was a "populist" last week and you'll believe anything.

Yes: you're exactly the person Obama was talking about. He pities you.
.

Hmmm. Looks like I'm done for tonight.

I'm sure there will be plenty of dumb crackers to fuck with tomorrow. I can hardly wait.
.

Grand Moff, by effectively calling me stupid, unintentionally reinforces my point about how liberals (including Obama) view people they disagree with as stupid.

Obama "continues to amplify" his comments in an effort to do damage control (nothing wrong with that, he is a politician running for office). Anyone notice what part of his comment he has not touched - "antipathy to people who aren't like them." Even Obama can't parse his way out of that one, so he talks about other stuff and ignores the fact he accused small town America of being racist.

James McMurtry's "Can't Make It Here Anymore."

Obama ought to be playing that song at his rallies in Pennsylvania and Indiana. It says the same thing Obama was saying, but it has a beat.

No, you won't dance to it.

optical weenie on April 14, 2008 at 6:57 PM:

..you need a rifle to shoot a duck.

Shotgun...You hunt ducks with a shotgun, weenie. Like the one Cheney shot that lawyer in the face with while he was bird hunting.

Hmmm. Looks like I'm done for tonight.

Posted by: Grand Moff Texan on April 14, 2008 at 9:23 PM | PERMALINK

Hey don't rush off. You've only been posting here about Senator Dreamy for EIGHT HOURS. Stick around awhile. I mean it's pretty obvious that you don't need to get up and go to a job or something.

I am just back from vacation and have been trying to catch up with "bitter-gate." Near as I can tell it is agreed by all that Obama was right on substance, but that he didn't express his views with the kind of clarity or precision the "issue" deserved.

Give me a break. This isn't worth a new cycle, let alone the cable news herd going ape shit. Rachel Maddow has the right take. This is a story made up by the press. They are riding it like a pony. I guess no blond girls have gone missing lately.

Obama needs to pound on the substance of this issue. He will win. There are a lot of voters who live in the rest of America who are bitter because nobody is addressing their economic concerns. Instead they are being thrown social issue bones by Republicans, DLCers and the consolidated corporate media.

Clinton supporters, don't make me give a major speech in response to this! Is that what you really want?!

Yeah, I didn't think so.

oh yeah, this is why i stopped visiting this blog. I almost forgot.

This is your response to "bittergate" after your return from your Malibu weekend? Why not include some of the photos from the beach at Malibu? That would be lovely. Something to look while looking at your out of touch commentary.
Posted by: Lynn Dee on April 14, 2008

This woman nailed it. You got a goose egg.

From Brian:

The truth is pretty obivious. He was just honestly expressing his critical opinion of folks in small towns. He and most liberal democrats thinks they are stupid for their views on guns, religion, immigrants and trade. He obviously could not say they were stupid, so he attributed their views to bitterness about economics.

Way to completely obliterate Obama's point to make him look as arrogant and condescending as possible.

In all seriousness though, there has to be a reason why blue-collar folks vote against their own economic interests. Why do they do this? Are they dumb? Or did they make the judgment that they're gonna get screwed no matter what and decide to support the side that at least pays lip-service to their "values"? I don't know the answer to that but Obama clearly wasn't calling them dumb.

This is another example of YOU being an out-of-touch Washington inside-the-beltway type.

How does your understanding of the English language lead you to read what Obama said and believe that he said that these bad economic conditions in small towns are "responsible for" gun culture, etc? No, he said small-town people "cling" to those values. Not responsible for those values, not causing those values, CLINGING to those values, like someone holding onto a branch as they're swept away in a strange, confusing, and dangerous flood.

That makes PERFECT SENSE. Small-town people are DENIED OPPORTUNITES. Their communities, many of them, are DYING. So peole CLING to their cultures, to all of their old, traditional, sometimes wrong-headed, values, demonizing gays and librul democrats, etc., etc. Then they're easy marks for Fox News pouring hate and lies into their heads, and go out and vote against their own interests.

OBAMA IS RIGHT, YOU GODDAM FUCKING FOOL!! HE'S RIGHT!!!

Poor Obamatrons! Let's not talk any more about this "bitter" business, but consider instead another ongoing problem of his, Mr. Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who's currently on trial in federal court for influence peddling and corruption, From today's Chicago Tribune, posted at 12:57pm CDT:

Gavel-to-Gavel: Obama appeared at 2004 party at Rezko's home
"Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama's name came up again at the Antoin 'Tony' Rezko corruption trial and in a way that earlier filings in the case did not telegraph.

"Stuart Levine, the prosecution's star witness, said he and Obama were at a party Rezko threw at his Wilmette mansion on April 3, 2004, for Nadhmi Auchi, a controversial Iraqi-born billionaire who Rezko was trying to get to invest in a South Loop real-estate development.

"Auchi, now a citizen of the United Kingdom, has faced criminal charges in Europe. He also figured in the revocation of Rezko's bond early this year after attempting to wire him more than $3 million. Upon learning of that attempt, U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve declared Rezko a flight risk and ordered him held in a federal jail in the Loop.

"The Rezko party in 2004 was designed to induce Auchi to pour money into the South Loop investment. Obama's presence at the party was not previously known. At the time, Obama was fresh off a surprise win in the Illinois Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and was riding a crest of national publicity."

--------------------------------------------------

I seem to recall that when recently asked this past March 14 by Chicago Sun-Times reporters as to whether or not he had ever met the controversial financier Nadhmi Auchi and / or his business associates, Obama said:

"I have to say I do not recall meeting them. It’s been reported that a dinner that Tony hosted at the Four Seasons — I don’t have the exact date, so I don’t know whether it was before November ’04 when I hadn’t been elected but had already won the primary or whether it was after the election ... I have no specific recollection. But again, they may have been there. So I can’t say unequivocally that I did not meet them, but I just don’t recall."

Simply amazing. What we have here is a presidential candidate who attends church without ever hearing what the pastor really said, who buys a house on a recently subdivided property without ever knowing that his most prominent political fundraiser bought the newly-adjacent vacant lot the very same day, and who goes to dinner parties at the home of the aforementioned fundraiser that he doesn't remember attending and further can't recall ever meeting the guest of honor.

Some people might give him the benefit of the doubt, calling these incidents cases of plausible deniability. I prefer to call them for what they really represent: This guy's a fast-walking, smooth-talking pile of bullshit.

Kevin's apparent reading problem IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!

This is the kind of post that demonstrates perfectly why Kevin's traffic is down about 90% since 2006, according to alexa.com.

So peole CLING to their cultures...

Sociological anaylsis is wasted on the media and commentariat.

Without any ability to influence the political economy, people cling to the traditions of their cultures while their economic well being collapses. This clinging has always been exploited by demagogues.

Barrack can turn this episode to his advantage by sending a message to the bitter, impotent masses that real power to change how things are run begins with voting for him.

Sigh....the comments in this thread go a long way to explaining why Dems keep losing POTUS elections that seem otherwise winnable. You folks really do think gun owners represent some sort of minority (and are only found on one side of the spectrum). I don't think Barack Jebediah Ezekiel Obama realized that he wasn't just insulting a bunch of wayward back country hicks.

"the only guns Democrats want to take away are the handguns or assault rifles used by criminals in large urban areas"

This is the kind of comment that reveals why Dems keep misplaying the issue. Criminals use rifles of all kinds in less than 1% of crime. Handguns aren't just used by criminals--law abiding citizens use them for personal defense, target shooting, and sport as well. I'm one of them.

Barack has spoken favorably of DC's total ban; Hillbot really wants another pointless AWB. The point--yeah, some of them really do want to start snatching them up (handguns are the prefered self defense tool for the law abiding gun owner, and the most popular game and sport shooting rifle in the US is the AR15, a rifle Hillary wants to ban...), and since only about one fifth of gun owners actually hunt ever at all, watching a Dem politician awkwardly cradle a gun and pretend to be down wit da huntas in the lead up to an election isn't very convincing.

I hardly expect any of you to abandon your rather bigoted opinions of us gun owners. But I do think if you want a Dem in the Oval Office, you do need to start playing the issue a weeee bit more intelligently. The only reason the Brady Campaign's stated goal of total prohibition hasn't come to fruition is the pushback from across the political spectrum. The reason you don't see Hillary and Barack clamouring for a total ban and pandering to the NRA? They know damn well, even if you people don't, that they won't win otherwise.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

With Obama you are getting the candidate you want and more importantly the candidate you deserve. Obama is by far the candidate who thinks just like you folks do, which is why Obama's campaign will melt-down in the general election.

The vast majority of the opinions expressed in these comments have reassured me that the Democrats lack common sense as much as ever. Sorry folks real life is not like TV. This election is not an episode of "The West WIng". You are not going to achieve the wish-fulfilment dreams of a liberal presidency. And you only have yourselves to blame for losing the election.

This was your year. If only you would have put up a candidate who could at least do a halfway credible job of faking moderation. But no. In your hubris, you had to nominate the most left-wing, out-of-the-mainstream guy you could find!

So on behalf of the Republican Party I thank you for once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. You would think that after the examples of Kerry, Dukakis, Mondale or McGovern, you folks would have learned your lesson. Too bad for you.

Sebastian,

The anti-gun virus runs deep in the Democratic Party. How else to explain the absurdity of a ten year prison sentence for the awful crime of possession of a .22 rimfire squirrel rifle in New Jersey?

http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2003/11/new-jersey-considers-this-to-be.html

You know, part of the enlightened 'crime control' policy banning the made up fantasy category of "assault-weapons".

There are people in small town PA having rough times, no doubt.

Obama makes a statement about what people turn to in rough times and he is instantly branded as “elitist.�

“There are no atheists in foxholes� is what we have heard from the right for decades. As it turns out, that statement is elitist sociology, by God!

Well, we can’t expect those uneducated, small-town folks to comprehend Obama’s high-minded proclamations, now can we?

Sebastian--
Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Overall I'd say the Democratic party has lately been quite willing to abandon the gun-control plank in its platform. In fact, it seems to be the one issue on which the trend of the general public sentiment favors the conservative position. Democrats have been quite successful at co-opting the issue in the states where people care about it. In the states where people don't much care about it (such as NJ, I presume), state Dem leaders follow the will the of the people as well. If it's such an outrage about these .22, why does no one seem to give a shit down in Newark or Trenton? Perhaps NJ voters don't share your exact values. Either take it it to the Supreme Court or shut the fuck up already.

damn, kevin that's just dumb. but you support hillary so it fits.

I think Obama is absolutely right.

Guns and religion are innexorably intertwined with the fears of immigration and the distrust of other cultures. Isn't that obvious? Wasn't the KKK born out of a white fear of losing social and economic status to non-Protestant and non-white (inclusively). Black Christians were a target of the KKK as well as White Catholics. I don't know the numbers, but in my memory it appears the KKK grew to it's most powerful in the South when the textile mills were closing and Civil Rights movement went mainstream. How can you say the bitterness over losing jobs and entire industries at the same moment other cultures are achieving goals wouldn't cause bitterness?

I think Obama's only mistake was assuming his statements would be taken as they were intended: nuanced and insightful. Instead, America is determined to soundbyte and nano-scandal these candidates to death. Hillary may be right, it may be impossible for an intelligent candidate who actually understands the social and economic complexities of America to become President.

Can someone explain to me why this thing is a 'gate' beyond the fact that the media likes to have something exciting to talk about?

Is this thread still going?

You can argue till you're blue in the face whether Obama's generalizations reflect the reality you think you know or not. The point for me is whether it's ever polite or politic to make generalizations about rural voters being bigoted and fixated on GGG. Just seems like one of those items that successful national candidates keep to themselves.

So, not two weeks (?) after he flounces out with the aid of costumes, production numbers and hysterical vows to never darken Political Animal's doorstep again, Donald from Hawaii, who has now stomped out of both major political parties and is relegated to the second tier, is back posting as "Blonde Leading the Blind"?

That's just...sad.

My parents retired to the Pocons in Pennsylvania, once they retired (about 15 years ago). Being New York City area Jews, they tried to keep a low profile until they learned the lay of the land.

Early on they tried buying from road-side stands set up by local farmers. They got into a very friendly conversation with one, exchanged information about where they were living, local gossip, etc. and just as my parents were about to leave, the farmer leans forward and whispers "Did you know you've got Eye-talians living by you?"

My father later told me "It was all I could do to keep from telling him 'Kikes, too!'".

IOW, I think Obama has semi-rural Pennsylvania nailed.

Obama is an "elitist". So says the down-to-earth middle class lady, from the White House, Chappaqua, and Nantucket.

It is so disheartening to think that, with all the problems and opportunities in the U.S. and the world, this election could possibly be decided by an inept description of a cultural situation or perhaps one or two words, "bitter", or "cling".

homer www.altara.blogspot.com

How can we improve the living standards of most Americans?

B: More guns.
Brad: More guns.
Sebastion-PGP: More guns.

brian: More lynchings.

Traditions are difficult to change. Without tradition, you are like a sniper on the roof.

shortstop,

Re: Donald from Hawaii - huh? I musta missed that. Rats. I wish he'd come back - he usually made a lot of sense. Was it the intra-party bickering that got him?

Regarding the bitter thing, John Stewart as usual had an absolutely brilliant stinging satire on all the people who tried to make something out of this.

It was like the best five minutes of tv ever!

wrldtree,

Can someone explain to me why this thing is a 'gate' beyond the fact that the media likes to have something exciting to talk about?

Here's a hint - who owns the media? Yeah, now you get it.

Meds time for everyone! Calm down, people.

Didn't Dr. Drum call this a nano fuss?
That means small.

Come on, people. Extra Thorazine for everyone, on the house. Just calm the fuck down!

lloyd carroll on April 15, 2008 at 8:48 AM:

..kevin that's just dumb. but you support hillary so it fits.

The first is correct, the second is incorrect. Drum pulled the lever for Obama, IIRC.

Tripp on April 15, 2008 at 10:40 AM:

Was it the intra-party bickering that got him?

Oh, no. Hawaii Don-O was pretty good at the intra-party bickering...It took Kevin Drum stating that it was time for Hillary to go for Don to say "sayanora" to the WaMo...For a little while anyways, if Shorty is accurate, which is something I've learned not to bet against.

Kinda sad, actually. He did make sense most of the time, as long as it had nothing to do with Clinton or Obama.

"B: More guns"

The way I figure it, guns are like pacifiers or teddy bears that help grown men sleep at night. My point is that I wouldn't get very far in politics if I went around saying that to cameras.

"In your hubris, you had to nominate the most left-wing, out-of-the-mainstream guy you could find!"

Dear heart, do tell us which of Obama's position are "the most left-wing, out-of-the-mainstream" positions, won't you? We can hardly wait.

Sorry for the wide brush swipe, B. However, Sen. Obama did not say guns were like pacifiers and he did not say what he said to the cameras. Sen. Obama was speaking to some wealthy Northern Californians at a fund raiser. His sociological musings have been construed by his opponents and the corporate media to appear he is out of touch with traditions voters, because what he said is very close to explaining the way they make political choices.

"Grand Moff, by effectively calling me stupid, unintentionally reinforces my point about how liberals (including Obama) view people they disagree with as stupid."

No, brian, we call people who repeatedly say stupid things "stupid". Maybe you should stop saying stupid things?

Nurse Ratched,
It will be hard for people to calm down today, it looks like bittergate is starting to grow a good set of gams. Several editorials out dissing the candidate for disrespecting typical white folk.

Real-life example of the truth of what Obama says:

My mother (approaching 80, widowed) lives in a small town in Pennsylvania (just north of Gettysburg). Recent stroke, financially well off, still in her own home.

My Mom votes Democrat, she thinks it's ridiculous how the Republicans impeached him. Or at least, she used to support Clinton, haven't talked to her recently about that. She hates, hates, hates George W. Bush and his entire administration. Bitter? And how, she thinks his adminisntration has taken this country over the cliff.

Two years ago, before her second husband died and before her major stroke, they would sit and watch Lou Dobbs *EVERY NIGHT* and function as Lou's amen corner.

At the same time, like any agricultural area in this country, the whole area north of Gettysburg depends on IMMIGRANT LABOR to work the orchards (packing and processing plants for Musselman Applesauce, etc.).

So there you have it. She lives in a small town. She is bitter on political/economic issues. Part of her list of grievances is against immigrants. Obama is right on this one.

Obama's remarks in San Francisco echoed a long-held belief in liberal circles that the Republicans have duped working and middle class American voters into voting against their economic interests by appealing to their retrograde social and religious beliefs. The reason his comments were so offensive and damaging is the contempt and lack of respect he showed for those voters. Does Obama or any liberal Democrat ever say that upper class voters in San Francisco or Fairfield County or Beverly Hills stupidly vote against their economic interests because the Democratic Party has scared them about abortion rights? No, of course not. What Obama believes is that those upper class voters are to be admired because they put their moral and social beliefs ahead of their economic interests. What's apparent is that he doesn’t give the same respect to working class and middle class Americans who put their moral and social beliefs ahead of their economic interests.

What's apparent is that he doesn’t give the same respect to working class and middle class Americans who put their moral and social beliefs ahead of their economic interests.

Nice dodge.

What's at play is this--the Republican Party's "southern strategy" and its appeal to values voters has turned into a disaster because of demographic shifts, attitudinal shifts about race, and because of all those Republicans who keep getting caught fucking male prostitutes while tripping on goofballs and wearing bondage gear inside out to make it hurt more.

The appeal to "moral and social beliefs" was based on the theory that you could scare people that the country was going to hell in a handbasket, and if you got them to buy that, they would vote AGAINST their short term economic interests in order to preserve, in the long term, for their children and grandchildren, a moral and just America. It appealed to a specific virtue that Republicans mock and deride, which is...I'm not going to borrow from Peter to pay Paul, I'm going to save and invest wisely, and I'm not going to spend beyond my means.

Appealing to values voters AND using the rhetoric of Newt Gingrich worked for a while--and then DeLay got rid of Gingrich and fiscal restraint went out the window while personal greed and avarice ruled the day. Look no further than the example of Randy "Duke" Cunningham and his bribery menu, his limosine rides with creeped-out chicks, and his cheesy lifestyle. Cunningham hated homosexuals and used every trick in the Republican playbook against his enemies, and even a Republican controlled Justice Department that couldn't be bothered to look at hundreds of other guys had to take him down, as if only to pretend like they cared.

Now, what's true is this--the Republican Party can't lecture anyone about religion, morals, values, fiscal restraint or corruption anymore. They're done. Those issues are toxic and easily used AGAINST them. It's so pathetic, they resort to peddling the idea that Obama is a Marxist.

Good luck thinking rural voters and small town voters aren't savvy enough to detect your bullshit. They're onto you this time, and they're never going to vote the same way again. The shift isn't quite complete, but damned near.

So, Obama thinks that working class white people are like your annoying ex-girlfriend - bitter and clingy (all at once.) That should play well with the rubes.

So, Obama thinks that working class white people are like your annoying ex-girlfriend - bitter and clingy (all at once.) That should play well with the rubes.

It works better than that whole "unstable madman who doesn't know who the fuck we're fighting in Iraq" act we see from the other side.

The Bitter bruhaha (brouhaha too elitist) is way overblown, of course, of course, but I have a different take on it than what I see most people discussing. To me, what jumps out is how Obama’s statement is a continuation of his disparagement of the Clinton presidency and legacy. He again lumped it with the Bushes and, by timeline implication, with Reagan, implying that certain people have pretty much been treated the same by all recent presidents. In this case, the specific issues he referenced were taxes and health care. If you think the Clintons have performed the same as republicans on these issues, then I won’t waste time arguing with you.

So, that’s the context in which I see it. Obama started attacking their legacy and disparaging their accomplishments early on in Iowa and has never let up. The MSM has been happy to reinforce.

Obama got a little unlucky this time with words that people can easily twist and exploit, especially if the MSN goes along with it. But the Clintons will keep counterattacking whenever they perceive Obama to be attacking their past performance. That’s not surprising.

Very few advocate zero ownership of any type of firearm by anyone in the public, thereby leaving at a minimum ownership of rifles for home protection. "take away guns" is unnecessarily inflammatory and certainly inaccurate.

Steve-Bullshit. go research some facts on "gun control", and see if you really believe what you wrote above. If you do, then you have much bigger problems involving critical analysis.

That is all.

It made me laugh when McCain and Clinton accused Barak of pandering to elitist donors in San Francisco. They are both here in the Bay Area every other week pandering to their respective wealthy supporters. I get invitations all the time to Hillary's events that cost 500.00 to 2,300 to attend. Its' funny because they come to California to collect money and then fly to the heart land to complain about the elitists that gave them the money. LOL.

Anybody going to complain about the constant bashing of urban voters found in the standard GOP stump speech? When is the GOP going to apologize to the citizens of San Fransisco, Vermont and Massachusetts for their frequent inconsiderate remarks about those places?

Jesus Christ. What Obama said was idiotic, but it was a mistake that he obviously wishes he hadn't made. It offers no glimpse into his soul or feeling about people in the heartland. Indeed, what other Dem politician in recent years has made more of an attempt to speak to rural or small town voters than Obama?

The GOP on the other hand, repeatedly and intentionally denigrates the habits and lifestyles of urban residents, and shows no sign of apologizing for it. I wonder why no one is up in arms about that? Could it be because the media does not play loops of that shit 24/7?

LOL...there isn't any part of Vermont that's seriously "urban," but I totally take your point and agree with it, kokblok.

Antipathy towards people who don't look like them?

Why not just say all small town white Americans are racist. That's what he really meant.

Fortunately, this racist candidate will be dusted by McCain.

Some of us are proud of our bitterness.

Bitter Americans
http://www.bitteramericans.com

Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.
Given the nature of your positions, yeah, I'd say operating on faith instead of knowledge seems your MO.

Overall I'd say the Democratic party has lately been quite willing to abandon the gun-control plank in its platform.
Eh, more or less--proof positive that it's simply a political loser in the marketplace of ideas. Right thinking people everywhere, liberal or conservative, recognize that prohibitionism, be it of booze, drugs, guns, hookers, gambling, etc., is a failed public policy.

In fact, it seems to be the one issue on which the trend of the general public sentiment favors the conservative position.

The problem being of course your supposition that gun rights = conservative. The right to self defense and to pursue the hobbies you enjoy, to include sport, is a civil right. And defense of civil rights is a very liberal notion.

Democrats have been quite successful at co-opting the issue in the states where people care about it.
Indeed--by supporting pro-RKBA positions.

In the states where people don't much care about it (such as NJ, I presume),
NJ is just about the worst state going for gun rights; there are people who care about it, but in the halls of power it's still toeing the party line of the Brady Bunch.

state Dem leaders follow the will the of the people as well.
Gun controllers everywhere get nervous when the will of the people is followed. That said, it ain't just about popular opinion--Jim Crow used to be popular too.

. Either take it it to the Supreme Court or shut the fuck up already.

Speaking of needing to shut the fuck up, have you no newspapers in your town dipshit? Do a quick google for Heller vs. DC.

Sebastion-PGP: More guns.
Ignorance matched only by your inability to spell. Where did I say more of anything?

What a tired canard.

Bitter. I believe Barack meant to say that the small town workers want to drink a "bitter" at the micro brewery after an exhausting round of chess.

http://politicalgrafitti.blogspot.com/2008/04/bitter-midwesterners.html

Sebastian PGP -

No, you shut the fuck up about guns. The fact is, no one is going to take away your goddamned guns, except for maybe the Republican Party.

They've given the blessing for torture, eliminated Habeus Corpus, made it possible for Bush to declare martial law, and they've been monitoring every electronic form of communication known to man without any checks and balances--is that the mark of a nation that respects the rights of the individual? Is that the way people who think you have Constitutional rights behave?

They take away three or four or five or six of the Bill of Rights from you but won't touch the Second one? Why don't you just fall to your knees and thank God there are people like Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold out there fighting these bastards? You know, Democrats who won't cave in to these bastards who have been trying to take as many rights away from you as possible so they can keep you ignorant, fearful and cowed? When are people like you going to wake up and see this fight for what it is--you've been suckered in by pussies who don't know how to handle guns properly because they know you're too stupid to think for yourself.

You're the delusional fuckwit here.

Pale - Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I gather from your response that you agree (1) working class Americans are stupid for voting against their class interests by electing politicians who oppose the welfare state and are instead deluded into voting for ridiculous things like anti-abortion policies or pro-gun policies and (2) upper class Americans are heroes for voting against their class interests by electing politicians who favor the welfare state and instead voting for sound things like pro-choice and anti-gun policies.

I certainly can understand that you feel that way. Most Democrats do. It's been a common theme of the liberal punditocracy for the past 30 years. Sadly, though, the people you view as stupid take offense at that and turn away from you and your candidates. Think about it.

I gather from your response that you agree (1) working class Americans are stupid for voting against their class interests by electing politicians who oppose the welfare state and are instead deluded into voting for ridiculous things like anti-abortion policies or pro-gun policies and

Yep! Couldn't have said it better myself.

(2) upper class Americans are heroes for voting against their class interests by electing politicians who favor the welfare state and instead voting for sound things like pro-choice and anti-gun policies.

Bingo!

Wow! You're smart!

I certainly can understand that you feel that way. Most Democrats do. It's been a common theme of the liberal punditocracy for the past 30 years. Sadly, though, the people you view as stupid take offense at that and turn away from you and your candidates. Think about it.

Actually, they're going to elect Barack Obama president of the United States this fall. But keep thinking in terms of that "pre-9/11" world that you seem to be so comfortable living in.

This is the "post-9/11 world" and Republican bullshit doesn't work anymore.

If you vote against your economic interests, doesn't that make you stupid? I certainly think so. And if you don't take responsibility for the fact that you vote against your economic interests, aren't you failing to hold yourself accountable?

Republicans used to be about "personal responsibility" until it bit them in the ass too many times.