Obama on small-town PA: Clinging to religion, guns, xenophobia

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 toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

"Waal, Mabel. Mah job's gone done been shipped to Chinee. Ah'm gonna grab muh shotgun 'n go sit out back 'n pray t'Gawhd. If'n thet Negro Bomma boy comes round, y'all tell 'im t'GIT! We don' wan' his kine 'round here."

Yeah, that'll play in Allentown.

Update: More here from Ace.

Still more from Allahpundit:

Hey, Barry? The objection here isn't that you’re "out of touch" (as Trent Lott is), it’s that you're a condescending, crypto-Marxist, elitist liberal poseur. And your what's-the-matter-with-Kansas apologia tonight in Indiana doesn’t do a blessed thing to change that impression.

and

Candor from Marc Ambinder: "We're dealing tonight with a classic Kinseyian 'gaffe, where a candidate says what he means and then is forced to account for it.
Plus: The elite media and most Democrats will say... "yeah...So? Obama is simply describing world as we know it."

Be sure to watch that linked video. He *is* good. I don't think he really manages to pull his arse out of the fire with that gaffe the other day, but the man can speak and engage an audience.

Update 2: More in-depth analysis here.

Update 3: Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania said Mr. Obama should not have implied that rural voters were clinging to their guns as a way of dealing with their frustrations.

"People in rural Pennsylvania don't turn to guns and religion as an escape," Mr. Rendell said. "Hunting and sportsmanship are long-established traditions here, and people of faith founded the commonwealth and continue to live here. What the senator has done is essentially misread what is actually happening in Pennsylvania."

David Saunders, a Democratic strategist and rural advocate, advised John Edwards's presidential campaign but is now neutral. He said he believed that Mr. Obama's comments would offend rural voters.

"It could mean he’s rendered himself unelectable," Mr. Saunders said. "This is a perfect example of why Democrats lose elections."

Update 4: Newt's take on it:

If you go to the most expensive private school in Hawaii and then move on to Columbia University and Harvard Law School, you may not understand normal Americans. Their beliefs are so alien to your leftwing viewpoint that you have to seek some psychological explanation for what seem to be weird ideas.

They can't really believe in the right to bear arms.

They can't really believe in traditional marriage.

They can't really believe in their faith in God.

They can't really want to enforce the law on immigration.

Therefore, they must be "bitter" and "frustrated."

This is the closest Senator Obama has come to openly sharing his wife's view that "America is a mean country". Not since Governor Dukakis have we seen anyone so out of touch with normal Americans. It makes perfect sense that it was in a fundraiser in San Francisco that he would have shared the views he has so carefully kept hidden for the entire campaign.

Bingo!

Update 5: More yet from Slate.com

"If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that," he told the Winston-Salem Journal. Poor wording was not the problem; on the contrary, it was his precision that was so unfortunate, and his ability to pack half a dozen unintended insults into a single sentence uncanny. And in San Francisco, no less? Roger Ailes couldn't have planned it better, unless he'd maybe followed up the event with some impromptu windsurfing in the bay.

Read the rest... It's pretty good, and actually provides a useful perspective to Democrats who sincerely want to do better with this demographic.

Labels: politics