Obama has once again revealed his elitist disdain for Reagan/lunch-bucket Democrats, and Midwesterners. While speaking at one of his San Francisco fundraisers he had this to say about small-town PA and the midwest in general:
“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of 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.
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.”
In one fell swoop Obama basically characterized small-town PA and the Midwest as racist, xenophobic, gun toting, fanatically religious, Archie Bunkers. And why are they like this all-knowing Obama? Well it’s because they don’t have jobs.
So, gun owners only own guns because they are bitter over job loss, not because they believe in their Second Amendment rights, are seeking to protect themselves, or perhaps enjoy a good hunting excursion? People turn to religion due to bitterness over job loss, not because they feel a spiritual connection and moral conviction to some higher power? And every body in small-town PA and the Midwest is a racist, xenophobe?
Obama clearly does not understand nor connect with the individuals who make up the backbone of America: working class, small town people. These are the people who need a president who will be a steward of the economy, who offers policy specifics, who will provide affordable and universal health care. Wealthy elites can afford to buy into empty rhetoric, platitudes and vague promises; working class people can’t. Hope isn’t going to put food on the table. Hope isn’t going to pay the hospital bills. Hope won’t fill up the gas tank.
When these people hear his vague message of “change”, they think he’s talking about nickels and dimes. These individuals Obama chose to slur, like so many of us, are the ones who need a president who will look out for them the most…and he wonders why he will not be getting their vote.
DONE (Democrats Over Nominating Elitists) 
for Oliver, its not as offensive as you think, as a matter of fact senator Obama has gained popularity in the poles her in Pa.
It is that his statement confused frustration, with values: such as constitutionality, faith, etc.
His statement was simply wrong, not contemptuous or a slur.
By: chris on April 20, 2008
at 7:46 pm
Obama is starting to let his real personality show. Now us folks in the Midwest know how he feels about us.
http://www.squidoo.com/most-liberal-senator
By: Farang on April 12, 2008
at 9:03 pm
This is such nonsense. I mean, I can kind of see why folks might get offended at these remarks, but they seem more compassionate than anything. Certainly, they don’t deserve the kind of white-hot backlash they’ve been receiving the last couple of days.
Obama’s speaking the truth here and just suggesting the failed policies of the past have led to American forms of fundamentalism which operate around religion, guns, and xenophobic patriotism. How is that offensive?
By: Oliver Melton on April 12, 2008
at 7:57 pm
For all the spin of the Drive-By Media, now everyone will know that this profoundly disgusting attitudes are not limited to Obama’s spiritual mentor (whom he distanced himself from, of course) or his wife, whispering sweet hatings into his ear at beddy-by time (just a little woman, pay her no never mind). Those attitudes are part and parcel of who and what Obama is, and what the Democratic party has been for a generation.
The Clintons hid it well, through misdirection letting everyone concentrate on the obvious lies; John Kerry and Dukakis not so well; and now comes Obama, so green and dorky he didn’t even get the fact that he let the cat out of bag, until the roof cave in on him.
His “explanation” was even worse tha the original comment, peppered with condescention toward “ordinary” Americans (as opposed to his extraorinary self, one presumes).
The Democrats do remind of a man jumping out of a 100th-floor window and changing his mind by the time he reached 40th, the problem is the alternative they come up with is to jump out of a 90th-floor window.
By: Derek N on April 12, 2008
at 7:10 pm