Obama just loooooooves rural PA

[King 5.45]

*SMACK*

"Why, thank you, sir! May I have another?"

And to think that I thought it too slimy to reregister as a Dem to vote against him in the primary ...

Obama attacked as elitist after fundraiser remarks

http://www.reuters.com/article/FSCON...16676020080412

By Caren Bohan

TERRE HAUTE, Indiana (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama came under fire on Friday for saying small-town Pennsylvania residents were "bitter" and "cling to guns or religion," in comments his rivals said showed an elitist view of the middle class.

Obama's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain both pounced on the comments Obama made last weekend at a fundraiser in San Francisco.

Video of the fundraiser, which was closed to the press, surfaced as Obama was campaigning in Indiana, trying to highlight issues of concern to working-class voters, such as job losses and rising mortgage foreclosures.

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama, an Illinois senator, said.

"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," he said.

[omnibus]

from a web blog i saw:

Obama to rural Pennsylvanians: vote for me you corncob-smokin, banjo-strokin, chicken chokin, cousin-pokin, inbred hillbilly racist morons.

that is basically what he said. this could actually be the end of his campaign.

[King 5.45]

from a web blog i saw:

Obama to rural Pennsylvanians: vote for me you corncob-smokin, banjo-strokin, chicken chokin, cousin-pokin, inbred hillbilly racist morons.

that is basically what he said. this could actually be the end of his campaign.

It would be if anybody other than Reuters had the nerve to run with it. You watch, mark my words: the MSM won't touch it with a ten foot pole.

The audio is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhil...a_b_96188.html Look about halfway down the page for what looks like an embedded video link. At 2:45 we "cling to our guns."

Transcript:

OBAMA: So, it depends on where you are, but I think it's fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre...I think they're misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work -- don't wanna vote for the black guy.' That's...there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it's sort of a race thing.


Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).

But -- so the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What's the concrete thing?' What they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what we're proposing -- close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every American. So we'll go down a series of talking points.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that 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.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you'll find is, is that people of every background -- there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're doing what you're doing.

If you're still at all interested in anything that this guy has to say, the full audio of his speech is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhil...n_b_96333.html

[rev214]

http://www.pafoa.org/forum/lounge-10...nians-you.html

[awkx]

In related news, Obama's campaign announces a new campaign logo, designed just for rural PA:

[King 5.45]

In related news, Obama's campaign announces a new campaign logo, designed just for rural PA:

I'm not buying it unless those thumbs are hooked into something.

You think I'm from Hooterville or something?



(Obama does!)

[J8300]

Obama attacked as elitist after fundraiser remarks

omg no way?





/sarcasm

[eXceLon]

I thought 'anti-trade sentiment' was supposed to be the Democratic position? Weren't he and Hillary fighting over which one of them hated NAFTA the most in Ohio?

Now I'm all confused.

[King 5.45]

I thought 'anti-trade sentiment' was supposed to be the Democratic position? Weren't he and Hillary fighting over which one of them hated NAFTA the most in Ohio?

Now I'm all confused.

He's everything to everyone, like a schmoo, no doubt. In front of those merlot-sucking, cheese-eating San Francisco Volvo liberals he made us out to be mud between their boot treads.

It's a damned same that he needs PA for the win.

[KeithPA]

Well whatever the hell show that is on CNN at 5:14 AM on a Monday morning is running this story. It is of course the Clinton News Network, so I kinda expected it. MSNBC probably won't run it, since they are for Obama.


ETA

MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama on Saturday conceded that comments he made about bitter working class voters who "cling to guns or religion" were ill chosen, as he tried to stem a burst of complaints that he is condescending.

"I didn't say it as well as I should have," he said at Ball State University.

As he tried to quell the furor, presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton hit Obama with one of her lengthiest and most pointed criticisms to date.

"Senator Obama's remarks were elitist and out of touch," she said, campaigning about an hour away in Indianapolis. "They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans."

At issue are comments Obama made privately at a fundraiser in San Francisco last Sunday. He explained his troubles winning over working class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions:

"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

The comments, posted on the Huffington Post political Web site Friday, set off a storm of criticism from Clinton, Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain and other GOP officials. It threatened to highlight an Obama weakness — the image that the Harvard-trained lawyer is arrogant and aloof.

His campaign scrambled to defuse possible damage caused with working class voters that Obama needs to win in upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania and Indiana.

There has been a small "political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois, who are bitter," Obama said Saturday morning at a town hall-style meeting at the university. "They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through."

"So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country."

After acknowledging his previous remarks in California could have been better phrased, he added:

"The truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That's what sustains us. But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to.

"And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention.

Clinton attacked Obama's remarks much more harshly Saturday than she had the night before, calling them "demeaning." Her aides feel Obama has given them a big opening, pulling the spotlight away from more troubling stories such as former President Clinton's recent revisiting of his wife's misstatements about an airport landing in Bosnia 10 years ago.

Obama is trying to focus attention narrowly on his remarks, arguing there's no question that some working class families are anxious and bitter. The Clinton campaign is parsing every word, focusing on what Obama said about religion, guns, immigration and trade.

Clinton hit all those themes in lengthy comments to manufacturing workers in Indianapolis.

"I was raised with Midwestern values and an unshakable faith in America and its policies," she said. "Now, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it's a matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith."

"I grew up in a churchgoing family ...," she continued. "The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich ...

"I also disagree with Senator Obama's assertion that people in this country 'cling to guns' and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration," she said.

"People don't need a president who looks down on them," she said. "They need a president who stands up for them."

One of Clinton's staunchest supporters, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., acknowledged there was some truth in Obama's remarks. But Republicans would use them against him anyway, Bayh said.

"We do have economic hard times, and that does lead to a frustration and some justifiable anger, it's true," Bayh told reporters after introducing Clinton in Indianapolis. "But I think you're on dangerous ground when you morph that into suggesting that people's cultural values, whether it's religion or hunting and fishing or concern about trade, are premised solely upon those kinds of anxieties and don't have a legitimate foundation independent of that."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i...Z_qWwD900GM0G0