Can someone explain to me what Barack said and the events after?

[AllyCat]

I don't want a bunch of pro- or anti- either candidate stuff. Just an explanation for someone who really missed it all doing the colic dance with a newborn. Thanks.

[MUAD_DIB]

1. I think it went something like this.

BO: People are bitter about what is happening in/to this country.

He could have given better examples of how they react when bitterness sets in, but he didn't.

He mentioned something bout guns and religion in relation to the bitterness aspect.


Hillary said something like people are not bitter in PA.


I'm not in PA, but I am bitter. I've been bitter for about 8 years.

[cottonseed]

2. And then every cable news talking head felt their Blackberry vibrate

and they began repeating the talking points over and over and over....

[MUAD_DIB]

7. No kidding? I really don't see what Bo said as being wrong or

out of touch.

This is his week to be beaten by the press. Next week it will be Hillary's turn.


There is no free press. They are bought and paid for. Most of them suck and are overpaid by millions.

[smalll]

3. No-one with a moderately competent grasp of the English language describes themselves as "bitter."

Angry? Sure. Enraged, irate, disheartened, disconcerted, doubtful, or demoralized? Yes. But "bitter?" No way.

When you say someone is "bitter" it implies an insult, put-down and/or dismissal of that person and his pain.

(And to the OP -- Barack also said that small-town Pennsylvania people, because of the lack of good jobs, cling to religion, to guns, to racism, to anti-immigrant sentiments AND to "anti-trade" opinions.)

[anonymous171]

4. Just like the meaning of "is" right?

[MUAD_DIB]

8. Spare me. Can I say that? ; D

And please don't tell me how I should describe myself.

Thank you.

[2rth2pwr]

5. Here's your handy-dandy guide.

Here is what Sen. Obama said:

"You go into 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. 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."


Here is what Sen. Obama now says he said:


"So I said, 'Well, you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on,' " he continued. "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 or they get frustrated about, you know, how things are changing. That's a natural response."


1. Note how version #1's "cling" becomes version #2's "vote about" and "take comfort from"—as the condescending dismissal becomes empathetic understanding.


2. Note how version #1's "religion" and "antipathy to people who aren't like them" becomes version #2's "faith" and "their family and community" —as fundamentalist xenophobes now become beleaguered folks who band together against the unfairness.


3 Note how version #1's "anti-immigrant" becomes version #2's "mad about illegal immigrants" —as the nativist who opposes all immigrants, legal and illegal, now becomes understandably angry only about those coming here illegally.


4. Note how version #1's "as a way to explain their frustrations" becomes version #2's "they get frustrated about" as the misguided scape-goaters become those who react understandably to adversity.


5. Note no explanation in version #2 for version #1's "anti-trade sentiment"—and no wonder since Obama himself is embarrassed that so far he's voiced far more "anti-trade sentiment" than those he caricatured.


6. Note how version #1's "And it's not surprising then they get bitter" becomes version #2's "your'e" and "you" and "Thats a natural response", as the condescending use of the embittered and distant "they" now morphs into a kindred "you" and the quip "not surprising" becomes the sympathetic "natural."


7. Note how version #1's idiotic logic that Middle-America has only become religious or pro-gun in the last 25 years as a result of job loss is simply omitted.

8. Note how there is sudddenly no "context" for the landscape of version #1: an elite Bay-area audience that is told stories about those Pennsylvanian gun-toting zealots.

[Blue_In_AK]

10. That's some serious word-parsing there...

I'm impressed. Now can you tell me how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

I kid, I kid...

[grantcart]

6. Ok

At a private fund raiser in a very upscale community in Marin County Obama was the guest of a fund raiser and agreed to off the record remarks that were recorded by a wannabe blogger that appears to be a surrepticious Clinton supporter.

At one point a couple who were volunteering to go to PA the next day and stay there until the primary asked Senator Obama what they might expect to find.

He gave a long answer. One part of that answer said that in the small towns you would find people who were bitter that over the years the good jobs have left and never come back and that succeeding campaigns and governments have promised results but no one has ever done anything and they tend to vent that bitterness in political terms by 'clinging' to gun issues or religion, etc.

[Blue_In_AK]

9. I can't figure out what all the fuss was about either,

and I'm not even an Obama fan (nor Hillary -- I'm just along for the ride this year). I'm liking him a little better, though, since everybody's piling on so hard.

[bhikkhu]

11. Here is some additional context:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x117879

From an interview in 2004 after the big convention speech. His talk includes a consideration of why small town and rural America votes repug, and follows the main points of the more recent talk very closely.