Monday’s campaign round-up

April 14, 2008

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* The significance of the “bitter” remarks is based largely on how the public perceives them. At this point, the initial reaction for Obama isn’t encouraging for his campaign: “A new Rasmussen poll has Barack Obama apparently losing the first rounds of the spin war over his ‘bitter’ comments, with 56% disagreeing and only 25% agreeing Perhaps more worrisome, a 45% plurality believe that the comments ‘reflect an elitist view of small-town America,’ versus only 37% who say it is not elitist. This is something he will probably have to address more, as it’s a figure sure to be analyzed and exploited by the Republicans should he ultimately win the nomination.”

* Hillary Clinton targeted Obama’s comments, but apparently found herself in a slightly awkward position on related issues yesterday: “After a weekend spent making direct appeals to gun owners and church goers, Hillary Clinton said Sunday a query about the last time she fired a gun or attended church services ‘is not a relevant question in this debate’ over Barack Obama’s recent comments on small town Americans.” She ultimately told reporters, “We can answer that some other time.”

* John McCain spoke to the Associated Press’ national convention this morning, and piled on a little. Asked if Obama is an elitist, McCain said, “I don’t know Senator Obama very well. I can only look at his remarks and say that those are certainly not the vision that I have of America and its strength and its greatness and what its fundamental values and beliefs are.”

* It was obviously before the recent dust-up, but Zogby shows Clinton leading Obama in Pennsylvania by four, 47% to 43%.

* Clinton unveiled a new anti-crime agenda on Friday, aiming to put 100,000 new police officers on America’s streets. (If this sounds familiar, it was part of Bill Clinton’s anti-crime platform 16 years ago.) The AP noted, “The plan sets a goal of cutting the murder rate in half in cities with high or rising murder rates. The time frame for doing so would vary by city, from as little as five years to longer. Her proposals would cost an estimated $4 billion a year and would be financed with savings gained from eliminating outdated corporate subsidies.”

* Here’s a fun poll result: “Thirty-two percent (32%) of Democrats now say Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race while 26% say the same about Obama. Those figures are up from 22% each in late March. Ten percent (10%) want both to leave.” Both?

* The efforts to find a Republican Senate candidate in New Jersey are surprisingly comical: “The merry-go-round of New Jersey Senate candidacies continued today, as one controversy-riddled Republican businessman officially dropped out, while a well-known former Congressman is back in the political picture. Former Goya Foods executive Andrew Unanue, whose campaign was controversy-ridden ever since he announced his candidacy on Easter Sunday, withdrew from the race today and threw his support behind former GOP Rep. Dick Zimmer.” (For those keeping score at home, Unanue entered the race, then withdrew, then re-entered, then re-withdrew.) The Republican primary will now feature a low-profile former congressman, a low-profile state senator, and a Ron Paul activist.

* I guess he’s trying to stay on the offensive: “Barack Obama furthered his recent criticisms of Hillary Clinton Monday by mocking the fact that she recently ‘threw back a shot and a beer’ in front of the media. After first saying too many candidates are only giving voters ‘rhetoric,’ the Illinois senator said, ‘They’ll promise you anything. They’ll even give you a long list of proposals. They’ll even come around with TV crews in tow and throw back a shot and a beer.'”

* Clinton is apparently serious about the Montana primary: “In a sign that she is planning to stay in the presidential nomination fight until the bitter end, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has dispatched a top aide to Montana to manage her campaign in that state’s June 3 primary. Matt McKenna, who has served as former President Bill Clinton’s traveling press spokesman since December, is returning to his home state in an attempt to guide the New York senator to a surprise victory in Montana.”

* Even the Republicans’ best Senate pick-up opportunity is looking weak: a new Rasmussen poll shows Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) leading state Treasurer John Kennedy (R) in Louisiana by 16 points, 55% to 39%.

The significance of the “bitter” remarks is based largely on how the public perceives them.

Somehow, I managed to avoid the “bitter” story until today. Looking at it now, I feel like a Martian catching a glimpse of bizarre human political rituals. Good grief, this whole thing is idiotic.

  • Obama will weather this “bitter” flap but it should be a wake-up call to him and every other candidate that there are no private conversations anywhere these days, and every word they say should be uttered as if it was in front of an audience of thousands with cameras rolling from every angle. It’s the only way to be sure.

  • As I noted in a post over the weekend, the problem for Obama is that even if he is right on the substance of what he said about small towns (and I think he is) he made a huge interpersonal mistake: no one likes to be called “bitter.” Even people who are bitter, even people who would admit to being bitter will not like it when some outside calls them bitter. It is a negative word, it suggests someone unpleasant to be around, and to have this outsider call you out on that “flaw” in front of the whole world will make people exceedingly defensive.

    As a good example (and a more eloquent articulation of this point) see the women bloggers at Slate’s XX Factor – in particular the entries “Bonbons for the GOP,” “Condescension or Pandering,” and “The Worst Thing I’ve Heard Obama Say.” Larimore is, I believe, a Republican, but the other two I believe to be Democrats and in general XX Factor has been fairly pro-Obama over time.

    I think this was a bigger deal than most Obama supporters are either grasping or are willing to admit. I do not think Clinton profits from it, either – I think the only beneficiary is, unfortunately, McCain.

  • Why does it seem like the people who were least offended by Obama’s “bitter” remarks are the very people to whom Obama was referring? Pennsylvanians by and large are saying “yeah, our economy IS bad. Lots of good jobs that used to be here aren’t. We’ve been trying to weather this storm for decades.” But because Obama mentioned it…oooooohhhhh, baaaaad maaaaan…

    So let me get this straight, he’s an elitist, but he also supports the terrorists? He’s a Christian, but he’s also a Muslim? He has a history of bringing disparate groups together to work for a common good, but he’s also divisive? He’s a self-made man, but he’s out of touch unlike gazillionaires like the Clintons, Bushes & McCain? Those real salt of the earth types? And he believes in personal responsibility, transparency in government and ending this unjust and ungodly and expensive war, but he can’t be trusted because his desk is messy, he prefers orange juice to coffee and can’t bowl?

    OK, glad we got that straightened out.

    Do you have to be an insufferable ignorant a-hole BEFORE getting into politics OR being a political journalist, or does it happen to you once you get the gig?

  • “Molehill politics” is the perfect label for this “bitter” thing.

    I gotta wonder how much trouble it would be for politicians ( if they even thought they might run for president) to pick out the top ten entertainments of Americans and get fairly good at each of them. With all the other preparation they do why not hunt, fish, bowl, nascar and all the dumbstuff “regular people” do? I mean Beauty Contestants do more prep work than these candidates do.

    In fact there should be a congressional “league” of some sort in which politicians do some of these activities regularly.

  • “… a 45% plurality believe that the comments ‘reflect an elitist view of small-town America….,’

    When the pollster puts words in their mouth, the sheep will bleat them.

  • Bitter and cynical and disillusioned and reactionary and paranoid and mad as hell and scared. And people suffering from these negative emotions are in a terrible state of mind to make decisions on serious matters, like how to vote. And that’s exactly where the GOP wants to keep them. Good for Obama for telling the truth.

  • MSNBC just broke in with a clip of Hillary in Pittsburgh, speaking to a manufacturing industry group. She tried to use the “bitter” comments against Obama and fell flat on her face

    She said, “You know, I know that many of you, like me, were disappointed by recent remarks that he made”

    And the crowd audibly responded with a spontaneous and growing chorus of “No, no.” They sounded pissed.

    The whole reason MSNBC broke in to show this was to suggest the working-class folks she’s insisting are upset really aren’t. They see a new angle here. Interesting.

  • The significance of the “bitter” remarks is based largely on how the public perceives them.

    How the public perceives them is based largely on how the Corporate News Media presents them to the public.

    Nothing sells advertising better than controversy. Plus it benefits their boy McSame.

    Last Friday, the president of the United States acknowledged to ABC News that torture has been directed from the White House. Obviously not newsworthy in the light of Campaign Gotchas!

    Headlines of ‘Obama calls Pa. voters bitter’ are preferable to headlines of ‘President too Stupid to Deny Torture Directed From White House’!!!

    Why in the hell is there so damn much outrage over interpretations of what Obama said and SO DAMN LITTLE OUTRAGE OVER THE WAR CRIMINALS RUNNING OUR COUNTRY?

  • I don’t think I can state this plainly enough. Polls suck. To any pollsters who may be reading this, if you are doing your job as ethically as possible, I say thanks for trying. But your polls still suck. They are snapshots in time, but the time window is being compressed greatly as sources of information multiply.

    Second, even when the polls are honestly conducted (ie, no push polling or cherry picking), answers are necessarily based on whatever random source of information the pollee has seen or heard. In short, that means anyone blandly watching 1 or 2 news shows and not spending any real time sorting through the meager amounts of info they are given are likely to be uninformed or misinformed. Hell, I pay attention to several sources and still don’t trust that I know everything I need to have an informed opinion because I know there’s likely some important piece of info missing from the MSM accounts.

    Third, many poll questions are just flat out ridiculous. “Do you think Scott Peterson killed his wife?” How the hell would I know? I’m not a detective conducting the investigation or a jury member who sees the evidence. I’m just sitting on my couch watching the same report with the same pictures/drawings/grainy ass videos MSNBC shows over and over, so all I’ve got to go on is what they tell me. That inherently means I don’t know much.

    Many polls over a significant period of time may show a clear trend, such as how many people think going into Iraq sucked. Ironically, no one probably needs to look at a poll at that point to know what everyone is thinking. If CNN would spend half the time actually informing viewers of things instead of constantly conducting polls and spewing out those results, people might learn things about the issues on which they are being polled.

    By the way, if you’re a pollster and are either dishonest or just clueless, we’ll all be better off when you finally decide to STFU.

  • Interesting, the post above at #10 isn’t by me but by someone stealing my handle.

    Steve, could you check the IP address and take action? Thanks.

  • Oh, back to what brought me back here:

    The Hillary incident that I referenced at #8 — and that one actually was me — has already been replayed by MSNBC, this time augmented by the NBC reporter covering the Clinton campaign. He said he heard a lot of boos as well as several people near him groaning. He said they’d come to hear about job proposals and didn’t seem to care for “all this other stuff.” You think?

  • “After a weekend spent making direct appeals to gun owners and church goers, Hillary Clinton said Sunday a query about the last time she fired a gun or attended church services ‘is not a relevant question in this debate’ over Barack Obama’s recent comments on small town Americans.” She ultimately told reporters, “We can answer that some other time.”

    Does anyone on her campaign, including the candidate herself, ever think past the next five seconds? Wouldn’t anyone paying an iota of attention have seen those follow-up questions coming?

    This continual cluelessness as to the likely results of her words and actions does not inspire confidence in her leadership or judgment.

  • This could be a plus for Obama, if he uses it right. The fact is that anyone who lives in a small town has seen the truly bitter. (Readers might like to look at the novels — supposedly detective stories — of “K.C. Constantine” for a portrait of just the sort of Pennsylvania town he’s talking about.)

    Now the really embittered ones aren’t going to vote for Obama. They’ll either vote for McCain or stay home. But his comments will make potential voters think about the guy next door, or Uncle Albert or their brother-in-law and suddenly they’ll understand that person and his weird comments a little better. And that will resonate in Obama’s favor, because they’ll see someone who does understand people, not an ‘elitist.’

    After all, how much milage did Bill Clinton –legitimately — get out of “I feel your pain”?

  • The terms bitter and frustrated keep popping up in Obama’s remarks. In his race speech, they were used to characterize white bigots. He used the same terms to refer to Wright and to excuse his political pulpit statements. Now he is using the term again to characterize the white voters who presumably are Clinton’s supporters, although he doesn’t come out and describe them as such. I think it may be that he is trying to tar Clinton as bitter and frustrated by calling her voters such. Calling an older woman bitter and frustrated is sexist and ugly, so he may be doing it slyly, hoping to start a meme that will replace her image of scrappiness. A second possibility is that Obama really does see the world in terms of bitterness and frustration and applies that term to others because it comes from his own soul.

    Calling anyone bitter is an insult because we are expected to greet adversity with stoic bravery. Bitterness comes from a sense of entitlement, a sense of being wrongly deprived of something due or owed to us. For Obama to feel bitter implies he has such a sense of entitlement, just as it would if Clinton were bitter. However, Clinton is not the person going around calling non-supporters, and Wright, bitter or frustrated. I believe Obama may see the world in such terms and feel that emotion himself, thus it becomes easy to project it onto others, in a mistaken attempt at empathy. Why would Obama feel bitter? Because he believes he is owed something that he has not received. What? A father, a different skin color, a free ride into office without criticism? I’m not sure how Obama feels he has been shortchanged by life, but one cannot feel bitter without a reason, real or imagined.

    This is where TR or someone will complain that I have no support for my argument. It is a truism of psychology that we see the world in the same terms in which we think, and generally, see ourselves. We project our inner environment onto the external world. Now, Obama’s speeches may be written by others, but when he makes off the cuff and spontaneous remarks, that is less true. That is where these remarks about bitterness have appeared, then been explained more formally. Why choose that description for one’s enemies when so many others are equally plausible? It is fair to ask why bitterness is a recurring theme with Obama.

    This leads to a problem for Obama. Can he be a good loser? Is he perhaps over-eager to drive Clinton out of the race, or perhaps even bitter about her persistence, because he feels he is entitled to be the nominee? I think he is not someone who takes being second place with good grace. But he is the second-best qualified candidate. I have stated before that I think it is arrogant to claim an office for which one is under-prepared, as he is. I think it is also arrogant to call a whole demographic group something as insulting as “bitter” because they don’t support your campaign or share your world view. I have seen little grace in Obama under pressure and that concerns me. I have seen a great deal of grace in the Clinton’s under extreme pressure and that reassures me. We need someone in office who can back down, apologize, and bounce back from temporary defeats. Where has Obama ever done so, and what is he showing us now? Not much, in my opinion.

  • I just saw a little of the Obama remarks over the weekend. I just heard bitter and a bunch of crying. I figured he called Clinton bitter and she was freaking out. I don’t know what to think now. Although I think Obama is right.

  • Elitist: suggesting that Reagen Democrats voted against their interests.

    Not elitist: being a blueblood Potemkin cowboy.

  • I figured he called Clinton bitter and she was freaking out.

    That will come later. The acidity and lack of grace in her concession-without-actually-conceding speech will be outstripped only by the redness of Bill Clinton’s face as he makes the talk show rounds fuming about America’s ingratitude to the Clintons after everything they’ve done for us.

  • I’m reposting this comment of mine from another CB article forum, because it has obviously become relevant here….

    ———

    Anyone who says that Obama got it wrong with his “bitter” comment, and that he was looking down his nose at them…

    *You* who say that are the arrogant, ignorant elitists. You keyboard commandos who pretend to understand the working poor just so you can use them for political props.

    Half my family comes from the economic sinkhole of south-eastern Washington state. I know how they feel and think, because they’re my kin. They tell me themselves. Damn right they’re bitter about watching our “wonderful” economy flush their jobs and opportunities down the toilet. Damn right they’re clinging to their religion and their guns and their cultural identity, because they have nothing left. And they’re not the least bit offended by Obama’s comments. They don’t think he was being elitist, **because they know he’s right**.

    Obama is absolutely correct about everything he said in that San Fransisco talk. I don’t think his wording was clumsy at all. He was completely right, and he shouldn’t even be admitting to the clumsy epithet. He should be charging full speed ahead, beating Clinton and McCain about the head and shoulders with how *they* are the arrogant elitists who are looking down their noses at the people Obama understands and wants to help. And he shouldn’t be taking a single word of it back, not even those not-really-clumsy parts.

    Even Faux “News” has broadcast a report proving that he’s in the clear with this. Don’t worry, that link goes to Crooks and Liars, not to Faux.

  • Curmudgeon @ 2: You make a good point, but I don’t think Obama’s comments were made with an expectation of privacy. I think they were made with an expectation that speaking the truth was an appropriate thing to do. It’s gotten him in trouble before, and probably will again.

    And Mary, never have I seen so many words with so little sense. You’re right about projection, of course, it’s just funny that you can type that out and with no sense of irony.

  • Set aside your bias for a second and think about what you’re arguing– that a poll taken on Friday/Saturday accurately reflects a 20% drop as a result of a story that didn’t really gain much steam until later on in the weekend. If you really believe that then you’re drinking some seriously strong Clinton kool-aid. The only way that works is if you think everyone sits around watching MSM tv news all weekend long. While I’m sure CNN/MSNBC with that were true, it really does take a few days for something like this to settle enough to affect people’s opinions. Especially a story that broke over the weekend.

    Not to mention ARG doesn’t really have such a good track record these days.

  • My last post was referring to Greg in #16.

    So far all the “elites” are telling us that this is offensive, that common folk should feel insulted and condescended to. We really don’t know how most people will take this– or if they’ll even really hear about it– so I’d hazard a guess that it’ll have far less of an impact than any of us are making it out to be.

    Regardless, PA’s primary is a week away– if this is frustrating to anyone now just wait to see how you’ll feel next Monday. Hillary has staked nearly everything on high expectations about PA’s results so she is sure to throw the kitchen sink along with the rest of the house at Obama this week to see what damage she can do.

  • wow the Obama flacks are in overdrive trying to rewrite Obama’s statement.
    The problem isn’l the not too startling recognition that people are currently frustrated.
    The problem is the arrogant dismissive statement that relgious belief is not genuninely held but just the besotted reaction of economic losers who don’t know any better.
    Indeed according to Obama these people are too dumb to have any beliefs of their own they are just sheep who the GOP bambozles.
    that’s what is elitist and wrong.
    not suprising that none of the obamaphiles who share the same dismissive and lowly view of people of faith just refuse to see the problem.

  • Billary and McBush will probably regret the moment they decided to rip open the “Bitter” controversy:

    1) After 8 years of Bush, just about everybody is bitter-even Republicans

    2) By making such an issue out of this, Obama will have the opportunity to deliver a “Major Speech”, (like his address after the Wright issue), and everyone will be watching. Each time he does this, his opponents shrink a little more, they look small and petty, and he will emerge larger, demonstrating his true empathy for the plight of rural Americans.

    Hillary continues to make this same mistake over and over. This does not recommend her for the job she is seeking, she doesn’t appear to be be on a learning curve.

  • Greg said:
    American Research Group has the latest poll data from PA, Obama went from a tie at 45% each last week to a 20 point loss and is now at 57% to 37%

    I knew someone would start talking numbers and electability today so I looked around the internet for poll numbers.

    Since Jan. 2007, Hillary Clinton’s negative rating has consistently been around 43 percent. In every poll I found, as many as 46 percent of people polled and no fewer than 41 percent of people polled had a negative opinion of her. Even back in 2003 when she was first positioning herself for a run for president, I remember that her negative rating was around 43 percent (though I couldn’t find citations for that).

    People think they know Clinton. She was in their living rooms for eight years. A year of campaigning hasn’t moved her negative numbers.

    So for Clinton to win in November, she would need to get the votes of 84.75 percent of everyone else.

    Is that electable?

    Or am I just picking on her because she’s a woman?

  • not suprising that none of the obamaphiles who share the same dismissive and lowly view of people of faith just refuse to see the problem.

    Well, I can’t speak for anyone else here, but I’m a lifelong Catholic and an Obama backer. Does that make me a self-hating Obamaphile?

    This is like when a couple weeks ago you people were saying Obama was anti-white even though he’s half-white?

  • Clinggate will not go away
    Nor should it.
    If Obama’s only way to deal with it is to mock HRC, he’s showing his true colors.

  • The problem isn’t what word Obama used or even whether he was right or wrong, it was the dismissive attitude displayed by his statement. Experienced candidates know that you treat even your enemies with respect. He is being called an elitist because he revealed that there are people he considers himself superior to, as evidenced by his language toward them. Most of us consider ourselves superior to someone, in our heart of hearts, so I don’t find elitism much of a crime, but it isn’t good campaigning to reveal that to the people whose votes you are supposedly seeking. Obama was disrespectful of the views of people who will probably never vote for him. The problem with that is that if he becomes president, he will be the president of the entire nation. Disrespecting any segment of that population is wrong. People in lower socioeconomic status are more sensitive to disrespect than those who are routinely respected, so perhaps Obama doesn’t appreciate what he did wrong, but respect matters in direct proportion to how little respect you actually get on a day-to-day basis.

    Obama was an idiot and it is a sign of lack of character that he is trying to put this off on Clinton instead of apologizing. As an inexperienced campaigner, he is compounding his error instead of capitalizing on it, and the enthusiastic Obamabots here don’t see the mistake and are rushing willy nilly to tell everyone that the great man did no wrong. It would be funny if it weren’t our party doing this stuff.

    Citing Clinton’s unfavorable ratings (similar to those of others now) doesn’t help Obama. Based on those, it is hard to understand how Clinton has ever won a single primary. Votes will change if Obama becomes unpalatable.

  • Doesn’t it bother *any* of the Hillary supporters that she and McCain are using the EXACT SAME TALKING POINTS in response to this so-called controversy? What happens if Mr. and Mrs. Small Town in central PA don’t get up in arms about this? Better yet, they don’t follow *any* of this the way that we all are. If one were to tune in to the story today all they’d really hear is that Hillary and Obama are attacking one another *again* and would likely change the channel.

    The bottom line is this– people are angry and bitter and don’t have to live in small towns to feel that way. Hillary appears to be positioning herself to argue against the idea that people are angry or bitter, which makes HER look out of touch.

  • Obama was disrespectful of the views of people who will probably never vote for him.

    Actually, he wasn’t, but I’ll play Abogado por El Diablo here, and say, well, maybe he was:

    As a Democrat, he’s supposed to disrespect the views of Republicans, not hold them in high regard like your gal Billary. Remind me again – which Democratic candidate keeps praising John McCain?

  • Anyone who claims that Obama’s comment was a gaffe clearly knows absolutely nothing about the working poor. That kind of arrogant ignorance is nothing new in political discussion, but this is personal to me because of my relatives in south-eastern Washington. This is my family, living in exactly the kind of dead-end economic sinkhole Obama was talking about.

    Anyone who thinks that Obama’s “bitter” or “clinging” comment was wrong or elitist or dismissive clearly knows nothing about people like my relatives who have been living in that kind of hell for 30 years. Obama was 100% correct. They *are* bitter, they *are* clinging to what little they have left, and if you actually asked them rather than arrogantly presuming to talk for them, they would tell you that Obama hit the nail right on the head.

    It angers me to see you know-nothing political hacks use my family to advance your lies and phony agendas. As if they and their community don’t have enough problems without you economic chicken hawks using them as political props.

    You Clinton trolls…you know nothing. Obama was dead right about everything, and you are dead wrong about everything. That is reality, whether you like it or not.

  • He is supposed to be critical of the view of Republicans and to assert that he would be the better president. He is not supposed to be disrespectful of them. That’s why they are always saying “My worthy opponent…”

    Somehow the Obama supporters have gotten the idea that this go-for-blood, take no prisoners in-fighting in the blogs is the way politics operates. It isn’t. People can be civil to each other, friendly even, while engaging in hard-fought senate battles and remaining die-hard opponents of each other’s programs. It isn’t typically ugly because everyone needs to work together in the same environment, for years. That’s why it is so silly when everyone here goes ballistic because Bill Clinton says something nice about McCain, someone he has known and perhaps even liked for years. This is about who is most qualified and who has the best ideas and programs, not who hates who the most.

    Obama is a neophyte and it shows. He cannot be friendly and still be an opponent — that’s why he snubbed Clinton at the State of the Union and why he is cold to her during debates. For him, it is personal, because he isn’t doing this to become president but to prove something to himself and perhaps others. These ego-involved personal reasons, beyond public service, are what result in dangerous decision, much like those of our current ego-involved adolescent boy-president. I don’t want another one, so I’m voting for the grown up in the election, not the best name-caller.

  • Mary, Mary, Mary,
    What a bitter lass.
    Guess that is what happens,
    When you back a loser who is an ass!

    If you will say something nice about Obama, I will say something nice about the Clintons! Genuinely nice, not sarcastic.

  • that’s why he snubbed Clinton at the State of the Union and why he is cold to her during debates.

    I imagine that gravity, serenity and thoughtfulness do look like “coldness,” if acerbic remarks about pillows, whiny jokes that fall flat, petulant complaints about “hard” questions and sneering looks are your measures of “warmth.”

    Obama has never failed to congratulate Clinton when she won a state. Clinton doesn’t even acknowledge Obama’s wins and routinely insults 40 states (I still can’t believe she called them “boutique” states) as irrelevant and not worthy of her attention.

    Obama describes Clinton as a qualified, formidable opponent. Clinton has refused to acknowledge even once that Obama is qualified, but can’t stop saying how much the Republican is up for the job.

    There’s somebody failing to be a civil, polite grownup (and Democrat) here, but it surely isn’t Obama.

  • I live ina small town of under 6000 people where I make a living off less then 12k a year… am I bitter? fuck ya.. Are my relatives bitter? most of them yup.. Are the random people on the street bitter here? A lot are.

  • The main point of all this is not elitism or who’s in touch with the voters, it’s are we going to let politics as usual rule the day AGAIN. Rove must be laughing his turdblossom off. I hope Obama gives a speech on this as suggested above that he might, and he blows this wide open…AGAIN.

  • Somehow the Obama supporters have gotten the idea that this go-for-blood, take no prisoners in-fighting in the blogs is the way politics operates. It isn’t. People can be civil to each other, friendly even, while engaging in hard-fought senate battles and remaining die-hard opponents of each other’s programs.

    Sure, just ask Clinton surrogate James Carville: “Politics is a rough and tumble business, and yet there seems to be an effort by the commentariat to sanitize American politics to some type of high-level Victorian debating society.”
    http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/03/14/carville/

    Carville, of course, soon after proved the assessment by calling Bill Richardson “Judas” for daring to back someone other than Her Royal Highness.

  • When was the last time we saw a politician snub someone in a fit of petty pique? It is Bush behavior all over again. Wounded ego. Ego ego ego. An unworthy impulse toward revenge, indulged instead of suppressed, as someone with character would do. You don’t give power to such a person because they will misuse it. How would Obama misuse power? I don’t want to find out.

    Obama is a small man using lots of pretty words to make himself appear bigger. Deeds, not words, make someone a bigger person. He isn’t big on deeds or on character. He is big on being popular and being the first black man to win the presidency. I’d rather he cared more about the problems of the people in PA, whether they cling to their guns or not.

    Everyone has spent a lot of time arguing about whether his remarks about PA are true or not. Kevin Drum points out that he also talked about gang violence and attributed it too to frustration and alienation. I come from CA where there is a big problem with gang violence. Alienation and frustration have very little to do with it. Gang members affiliate with gangs for self-defense out of fear in unsafe neighborhoods. The gang gives them a sense of identity and its activities reinforce their own values. The gangs are the distribution network for drug trafficking and other crime, beginning with youngsters because they are treated more leniently by law. There are real economic incentives for gangs and violence. These are not the aimless acts of vandelism committed by middle class juveniles. Obama doesn’t know what he is talking about on this issue. I suppose he is given some authority on the subject because he is black, but he is talking out of his butt, just like he did about the people in PA.

    We all feel frustration and perhaps even bitterness, so his remarks has superficial plausibility. If we feel it, why not the people he maligned? The problem is that his remark makes no sense as any kind of sociological analysis. That’s scary. When they say he is removed from the people, that’s what they mean. He is making things up instead of finding things out. We don’t need a leader who does that.

  • TR, @41.

    It ain’t worth your time or effort to argue with Mary on this particular point. Probably not on any other, either; Insane Fake Prof’s method is the only way to cope. But, on this particular point, Mary’s done a 180deg flip within very recent memory. When Hillary went into the “kitchen sink and Tonya Harding” mode, Mary was adamant that there was nothing wrong with with incivility; that was politics and, if Obama couldn’t stand the heat, he should get out of the kitchen. It’s only when she perceives incivility *from* Obama, that she objects to it. And, every time Obama refuses to exhibit the old-fashioned gallantry (“I kiss your hands and lay myself at your feet, madame; your most abject servant” type of gallantry), she sees it as incivility.

  • Mary, I don’t know if you realize this or not, but gang violence is not exactly foreign to Chicago. That’s beside the point however, because even if you were right about that (you’re not) that still does not make Obama’s remarks about PA any less truthful.

  • Didn’t Hillary cap the sniper who was on her in Tuzla?

    She did, and while she did it, she was answering the phone and emailing Bill to beg him to step away from NAFTA. I’d like to see Obama multitask like that.

  • Now this is funny. HRC has been clamoring or the Michigan primary to count even though Obama wasn’t on the ballot. But what if he had been? The Detroit News may have a clue:

    Obama, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, leads McCain 43 percent to 41 percent, according to the survey by Lansing polling firm EPIC-MRA… however. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, holds a 46-37 edge over Clinton.

    Now, 42 percent of Michiganians in the survey said they would prefer that Obama win the Democratic nomination, to 37 percent for Clinton; 21 percent are undecided.

    This, on the other hand, is not funny…

    McCain also gets more favorable reviews from voters than either of his possible Democratic opponents. Fifty-nine percent said they had a favorable opinion of McCain, compared to 55 percent for Obama and 45 percent for Clinton.

  • I have argued that no-holds-barred criticism is part of campaigning, not incivility. If you do not know the difference, that explains a lot about the tone of this blog.

    Gangs exist in all of the country, including in smaller towns. You’re right, Obama has no excuse for his unfamiliarity with the causes of gang violence and basic sociology. I suspect he is appealing to the simplistic prejudices of his audiences, not stating the kind of nuanced view an attorney might hold. Regardless, he is responsible for what he says and it does not suggest he will be effective as president in helping cities combat their problems with gangs.

    Clinton has proposed a program in support of community policing that is being referred to as the same as what Bill Clinton did in office. What they neglect to say is that the program successfully reduced crime nationwide. They also fail to point out that crime has been steadily increasing since Bush defunded that same help to city police forces. What is Obama’s plan? Does he think that ignoring Columbia’s economic situation will help us deal with the drug trafficking that supports US gangs?

  • Obama is an “elitist”. So says the down-to-earth middle class lady, from the White House, Chappaqua, and Nantucket.

    It is so disheartening to think that, with all the problems and opportunities in the U.S. and the world, this election could possibly be decided by an inept description of a cultural situation or perhaps one or two words, “bitter”, or “cling”.

    homer http://www.altara.blogspot.com

    • Comments are closed.