Obama’s Dreadful Timing
Mike Allen at The Politico lays out 12 good reasons - or 12 bad reasons, if you will - why Barack Obama has made a terrible mistake by attacking small town Americans. If he's analyzed it correctly - and I suspect he has - Obama has a real problem hitting him at just about the worst time possible.
A Clinton comeback was looking far-fetched. But operatives in both parties were buzzing about that possibility Saturday following the revelation that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told wealthy San Franciscans that small-town Pennsylvanians and Midwesterners “cling to guns or religion” because they are “bitter” about their economic status.
Obama at first dug in on that contention Friday after audio of the private fundraiser was posted by The Huffington Post. Altering course, on Saturday in Muncie, Ind., he conceded that he “didn’t say it as well as I should have.” And he told the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal that “obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that. … The underlying truth of what I said remains, which is simply that people who have seen their way of life upended because of economic distress are frustrated and rightfully so."
Here is what he said April 6, referring to people living in areas hit by job losses: “[I]t’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.”
The Obama campaign contends that coverage of the San Francisco remarks is overheated and distorted. One aide said that “any logical analysis” would make it obvious that the brouhaha will not “change the pledged delegate count” — the key to the Democratic presidential nomination.
In fact, this is a potential turning point for Obama’s campaign — an episode that could be even more damaging than the attention to remarks by his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, since this time the controversial words came out of his own mouth.
Here are a dozen reasons why:
1. It lets Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) off the mat at a time when even some of her top supporters had begun to despair about her prospects. Clinton hit back hard on the campaign trail Saturday. And her campaign held a conference call where former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Pittsburgh native, described Obama’s remarks as “condescending and disappointing” and “undercutting his message of hope.”
I'll send you over to read the rest, it is worth taking the time to do so. Even though the spinners and the complicit media are already trying to make this into something it is not by spinning the "bitter" aspect rather than the dismissive scorn Obama heaped on average Americans, I really think this one has legs. In a general election, Obama has handed the Republicans a mighty club to be beaten with. The errors are mounting now and Obama is beginning to hurt himself with the unaffiliated voters.
By the way, isn't it amusing that this whole thing was pushed out from under a rock by the Huffington Post? Must be that vast left-wing conspiracy thingee in action.
By chuck, Sunday, 13 April , 2008 @ 8:26 am
Even more amusing, it was published on HuffPo by Mayhill Fowler, an Obama supporter who apparently saw nothing offensive about it. It seems she thought it was just common sense that every enlightened person would understand.
By martian, Sunday, 13 April , 2008 @ 1:18 pm
What strikes me as interesting is that no one seems to have noticed another major discrepancy in the speech - that the NAFTA and Coumbian trade agreement opposing Obamessiah points to it as something negative that "bitter" middle Americans "cling" to "anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” This seems to imply that he thinks being anti-trade is a bad thing, yet a strong plank in his own platform is opposition to free trade. Which is it, Barrie? What do you really believe? Is trade good or bad for America?
By Mockinbird, Monday, 14 April , 2008 @ 3:53 pm
One might wonder how he truly feels about white, super wealthy billionaires in San Fran, now that they have already contributed funds. Politics has become too important in our society, personal accomplishment is not celebrated as much by comparison.