Barack Obama, speaking in San Francisco about people in rural Pennsylvania:
Mayhill Fowler has more from Obama’s remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser Sunday, and they include an attempt to explain the resentment in small-town Pennsylvania that won’t be appreciated by some of the people whose votes Obama’s seeking:
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.
Let me just say that I speak about this subject with some degree of expertise.
Although I grew up in suburban New Jersey, my family is, by and large, from small towns or cities in Pennsylvania. My parents came from the Scranton area. Their parents and grandparents had come there from Europe because the coal mines provided the same type of jobs that their native Poland and Slovakia did. I still have family there scattered in little towns like Peckville, Olyphant, and Clarks Summit. And, I’ve got family scattered all over the Keystone State, mostly in smaller towns. Though I didn’t grow up there myself, I’d like to think that I’ve come to understand what the people there are like.
Yea, they like guns. But that’s because they live in a hunting culture, especially in the western part of the state, not because they lost their jobs. I still remember when I was a kid visiting an Uncle who had a gun rack filled with hunting rifles right in the living room, not to mention all the fishing rods.
Yes, they are religious. The Catholic Church where my grandmother was baptized, confirmed, married and buried from, the same Church my mother was baptized, confirmed, married, and buried from, is still standing. And, despite the population loss and the scarcity of Priests, people still go there, but not because of international trade.
I’m not sure what it is about Obama’s statement that rubbed me the wrong way when I first read it, but Will Collier pretty much captures the essence of my thoughts:
Not meaning to quote John Mellencougar, but I grew up in a small town, and I’ll tell you something else those folks don’t like, senator. They don’t like being told that they’re rubes by a city slicker, they don’t like being told that they’re racists because they think unlimited illegal immigration might not be the greatest idea, and they really don’t like being condescended to. They particularly won’t like being condescended to by a guy who hasn’t accomplished much more than graduating from law school and winning a few elections in which he effectively ran unopposed.
Unlike Will, I didn’t grow up in a small town, but I know people who did and they’re in Pennsylvania, and this kind of elitism ain’t gonna impress them much Barack.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
It looks to me like you just said you agree with those sentiments and don’t really know why you are bothered.
Yea, they like guns.
Yes, they are religious.
Interesting rebuttal.
I’m not sure that you hit this one on the head this time.
AP
April 11th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Where did he say they were “rubes”? He qualified his statement in the first paragraph. They cling to what’s comfortable: the right to bear arms, religion, themselves. It’s human. I live in a small town in Michigan and that’s exactly what people are doing here. And I understand it totally because I feel the same way at times.
Sheesh! And I’m not an Obama supporter. I like the Greens (except Cynthia McKinney).
April 11th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
AP,
Obama’s talking in San Francisco about people in rural PA like they’re a bunch of backwoods hicks. He obviously doesn’t understand them.
T-Steel,
It’s quite clear to me that he was talking down to these poor people who still like guns and God. Whether it’s correct or not, based on what I’ve encountered, it’s not likely to garner any votes for him in PA.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
I guess Senator Obama should have said “some towns” right? Micro-parsing again…
April 11th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Actually I would suggest he just keep his mouth shut if that’s what he was going to say.
He fumbled this one, face it.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I don’t feel like he called me a “backwoods hick” and I’m in the woods. If he said this in Pennsylvania, would it have been better? Maybe it won’t garner votes but it’s far from a slight.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Nothing for me to face since he’s not my candidate. I just don’t agree with his statement being a slight.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
[...] on this: Hot Air, Below The Beltway, Vodkapundit, American Spectator, Slog, Maggie’s Farm and The News Buckit (via [...]
April 11th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
A Significant Part Of Obama’s Message…
The Right has gotten themselves up in a tizzy because Obama apparently insulted middle Americans. You know, the pro-gun, pro-God, anti-Government, anti-Illegal Immigration folks that never seem to vote for us anyway.
This is something we’re go…
April 11th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
from swimming freestyle:
“Barack Obama is a remarkably eloquent man and turning into a remarkably capable politician. But if the Senator believes it’s smart to insult voters from a state critical to your success, he’s hit one of the worst false notes yet in his campaign.
Yeah, I know what his campaign said, and that may have been what he meant. But a sophisticated candidate doesn’t refer to voters in language that can be construed as derogatory or insulting. Obama asserted Pennsylvania voters are bitter and so simple and lacking in maturity and intelligence that they address their frustration by clinging to primitive and reactionary crutches rather than addressing their problems in constructive ways.
It’s divisive. And not the way to attract the voters you need most.”
http://swimmingfreestyle.typepad.com
April 11th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
[...] Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain were quick to jump on Barack Obama’s comments about the alleged bitterness of small-town Pennsylvania. [...]
April 11th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
[...] Marc Ambinder comes this response from Barack Obama to the controversy over his earlier remarks about the alleged bitterness of people in small-town Pennsylvania: “When I go around and I talk to people there is frustration and there is anger and there is [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Obama made it clear: religion and guns are something he doesn’t believe in or even understand. He also doesn’t believe in or understand the need to protect our borders.
The American people should thank Obama for demonstrating just how out of touch he is with the rest of us. His entire political career has been a stealth operation, in which he’s been trying to hide his leftist views as much as possible (witness his constant “Present” votes in the Illinois Senate). But here he slipped up and let his true feelings out. We should thank him and then vote for his opponent.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:22 am
T-Steel, no offense but given that you are a Green Party supporter, I’m guessing that you, like Obama, are not representative of most Americans. Last I checked, there wasn’t much Green Party support in rural Michigan (and yes, I live in this state also).
April 12th, 2008 at 8:01 am
“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.” So this is what Sen. Obama thinks of us poor, little, feeble-minded, small-town hicks, huh? Nice. And this guy is the “Great Uniter” candidate, right? Then he tries to cover it up by saying, “Oh, I meant that small-town people are bitter about losing their jobs.” And he thinks we are just so stupid that we will fall for that line. Nevermind that he just generally accused us small town folk of being gun-toting, xenophobic, religious zealots. This guy is such a snob.
April 12th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Once again Barack Hussein Obama has no clue what he’s talking about. We Pennsylvanians don’t cling, peaches do. We own guns because of people like Obama and a Government that has become corrupt. We don’t shoot other people unless they are threatening our life. We are a religious people and we wouldn’t stand for a preacher that was a racist like Obama’s preacher – we’d send him to the windy city where he would apparently be welcomed. When we lose our job, we find another one – we don’t ride out welfare and we don’t get clingy. We love immigrants because we either were immigrants or our forefathers were. We don’t like those who break the law, including illegal immigrants. The Democratic Party has really presented us with two boners. Do we intentionally try to lose the presidential race every election? When will we find a candidate that is smart enough to keep his or her mouth shut when they have nothing intelligent to say? I want someone electable and Hillary and Barack are proving they are not. Voting for Hillary and keeping my fingers crossed. May even register Republican come April 23rd.
April 13th, 2008 at 7:41 am
[...] Obama’s recent remarks and Clinton’s efforts to exploit them, the delegate math today is as bad for Clinton as it [...]
May 9th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
[...] are reall issues there. Ranging from Obama’s own elitism, most famously demonstrated by his “bitter” remark, along with the Jeremiah Wright story, and his seeming inability to relate to middle-class problems: [...]