[W.O.R.M.
was originated by VastLeft here.]
And best of all, anybody can play! Even, or perhaps especially, Obama campaign operatives! Times:
[In the wake of Obama’s “small towns” gaffe,] his aides made a flurry of calls to superdelegates to explain his remarks and to reassure them about his electability. And Mr. Obama told audiences Saturday that what he had said about people’s economic circumstances was true, if inartfully expressed, but that he was not trying to play down the importance of religion or gun rights.
Heh. For the record, let’s go to the tape:
“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,” Obama said. “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.”
Leaving the insults to “small town” voters aside — did Obama “cling to” Reverend Wright? — the worst thing about Obama’s gaffe is that with it, he proves that he has no understanding at all of the voters he’s dealing with. He doesn’t understand their lives, and he doesn’t understand their experience.
Because Obama performs his usual trick—so appealing to his narrow, youthful, uncritical base—of lumping Bush and Clinton together as part of the same past. But for these voters, the Clinton years were a lot better. Clinton’s economic policies were a lot better than Bush’s, and as a result, people were better off, especially as measured by income. As a PA truck driver said: “What don’t you like about Clinton? The peace? Or the prosperity?”
Obama convicts himself, with words right out of his own mouth, of complete ignorance of a huge swath of voters in the American heartland. So, since he doesn’t understand us, why would we trust him to come up with policies that will help us?
The answer, increasingly: We don’t.
And now the Obama campaign is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. And call me crazy, but if I were an automatic delegate, and I got a call from the Obama campaign saying “Don’t worry! My guy is really electable,” well, I just might start worrying — especially if I were one of the downticket Dems that Mr. Hopey “transformed” into a target of opportunity for Republican attacks with his “inartfully expressed” insults. Heck, if I were counter-suggestible enough, I might even think to myself “If they were all that confident, why’d they even make the call?”
I’m betting there people who aren’t quite as anxious for their Unity Pony to arrive as they thought at first…
NOTE I like “inartfully expressed.” I think I might end up clinging to it.
UPDATE Massive takedown from eRiposte here. In fact, the Obama transcript is even worse than I thought.
Front page
The Laughter Is Telling
One of the most telling parts of the tape, as joc pointed out in comments at Talk Left, is the laughter of his crowd of wealthy donors. Look at where the laughs come:
Why does Barack Obama think it adds more skepticism because a black man says it? And why does the crowd laugh when he says this? They are either laughing because he’s saying those working class whites are skeptical because of his name, which is of course African, or because he’s a black man. Not because he went to Harvard or because he’s a Senator or because he’s made a lot of money off his book or those voters hadn’t heard of him before last year. Those might be reasons why some voters are skeptical, but that isn’t what Obama says and I suspect those reasons wouldn’t be funny. No, those voters are supposedly skeptical because the message is coming from a black man named Barack Obama. Which is, apparently, quite funny to Obama (who was clearly saying this for a laugh) and the people listening to him.
And when the television ad plays with the shots of the Getty mansion on San Francisco’s billionaire’s row and the audio of Barack Obama and all his supporters essentially laughing at those poor racist white working class voters.
Although perhaps I’m being too hard on Obama and this was just a continuation on that very important national conversation on race that he promised to lead.
For a transcript of Obama’s comments, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fo…
Video of Obama's Comments in SF
Can be found here - http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0…
and it’s the exact passage I just quoted.
This is going to get worse before it gets better. And this is bad for all Democrats. This was fun for a day or two, if only to watch the blogger boyz spin, but if Obama turns out to be the nominee, this is a disaster.
Given the penchant for politicians to repeat themelves, how many times do we think Obama has made similar comments?
For someone as "eloquent" as he is
Obama sure needs to do a lot of explaining as to what he really meant.
The Oracle at Delphi wasn’t that hard to understand. Perhaps Barack should have an interpreter stand next to him when he speaks.
————————————————————————
“It’s like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you’re wrong.” - Molly Ivins (RIP)
What the Dem Party needs is a flight to safety
As we’ve been saying: Obama has both bigger upside potential than Hillary, and much bigger downside risk.
And for the last few weeks, he’s seemed to be working diligently to minimize the upside potential (the 48 state strategy) and maximize the downside risk (gaffe after gaffe).
Obama is like a speculative stock that’s turning out bad as the market sours.
Hillary’s more like a bond. Her risks are known, and the return is much more predictable.
The OFB
, who really seem to have turned the knobs all the way up to 11 these days, remind me of the speculators who, when the froth is highest at the top of the market, proclaim that everything has changed because of their new paradigm, and are desperate to talk up their stock because when the market drops, they’ll lose their shirts (or, as kid oakland, letting the cat out of the bag, remarks, their careers).
It remains to be seen whether the Dems come to their senses in time.
Please, can we have more boring bullet points about policy?
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
I hope the boiz weren't all expecting
jobs in the new Obama administration.
Even if he wins, there are a finite number of “patronage” type appointments available, and most of the civil service slots will already be filled with GOP moles burrowing in.
————————————————————————
“It’s like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you’re wrong.” - Molly Ivins (RIP)
on the leftcoaster thing--
“this kind of sweeping generalization about working class white voters - especially working class Democrats. It is exactly the kind of nonsensical and insulting generalization that his elitist supporters keep making that will only make these voters more suspicious of the Democratic party. “
it’s so true—he described people who vote GOP, not those who vote Dem but don’t vote for HIM.
and this too, esp if it’s so that he was specifically being asked why these people weren’t voting for him:
” “And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said we’re going to make your community better. We’re going to make it right and nothing ever happens. And of course they’re bitter. Of course they’re frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are.
This is just offensive garbage. Democrats have been doing a lot for these voters for 25-30 years. Bill Clinton did a lot for these voters in the 1990s. Sen. Clinton will do a lot more for them. It is the Republicans who have blocked much progress for these voters. Just makes me wonder who exactly is bitter here. “
a newer post from Anglachel-
who is absolutely right.
“We won’t get there by demonizing an opponent’s supporters as bitter, vengeful and stupid. Voters do vote their interests, but those interests arise from complex identities and contradictory lives. Interests are not monolithic. They can be nudged in better directions and cemented with legislation that obviously improves their lives.
The Democratic Party elite needs to get over their obsession with HillBillies and start concretely addressing the bread and butter concerns of all working class Americans.” —
http://anglachelg.blogspot.com/2008/04/p…
video keeps this alive all week now, for sure--
i’m surprised it’s not on tv yet (or is it?)
oh! tonight's the "Compassion Forum" too!
that’s fitting — it’s sure to come up.
So how come Obama gets to have a complex identity on Wright...
… but ordinary people in small towns don’t get to have complex identities of their own?
Just asking. Maybe we can get a trained Harvard sociologist to explain ourselves to ourselves….
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Lambert: Because they are just simple farmers
These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.
————————————————————————
“It’s like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you’re wrong.” - Molly Ivins (RIP)
"I'm not bitter!" stickers--hysterical
— http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2…
how's this for spin? O's Dir. of Religious Affairs--
“… The Obama campaign argues that the Illinois senator was merely saying that “in our toughest times when Christians have our backs against the wall, we’re commanded to hold fast to our faith,” according to Joshua DuBois, Obama’s director of religious affairs. …” — http://www.politico.com/news/stories/040…
just laughable.
Spin
That spin is incredible. It’s not even massaging the truth, but choking it. In honor of Hope & Unity
’08, I recommend Obama’s campaign theme song.
they make their own 'reality" i think, like Bush
— it really is laughable—no wonder that quote isn’t in the papers, i guess.
OMFG....
That’s beyond spin.
It’s torque.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
There was a band in Hartford about 20 years ago
called “But I’m Not Bitter!”
Always cracked me up.
I’ve mentioned this before elsewhere, but my father, who was a conservative Republican and Limbaugh-fan who’d come from generations of college-educated engineers, suddenly decided that Hillary was no longer a bitch in about 1993, when one of her relatives died and it came out that her father was from Scranton, where my father’s family was from.
He was hardly working-class, but he *was* from Scranton, and that trumped everything else. She was okay by him the moment he found out she was from Scranton. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of the support she has in PA is because her family is from Scranton. Which means Obama just really doesn’t get why he’s not doing as well there.
he just used it on CNN!
amazing!
it is, zuzu, from what i've heard--
she summered with them, and it was a big family or something…
Wow. I hate to say Bush-ian
… but using your religious director’s bullshit to scam your way out of jam….
Did Hillary call bullshit?
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
terrible abortion answer too--
“woman’s choice in consultation with doctor, pastor and family” —ugh.
And he’s copying Hillary a lot like he does in debates when he goes 2nd.
he has no clue about AIDS
—he’s blathering.
they're talking separately--she went first alone,
and now it’s his turn alone.
They didn’t follow up at all on the bitter clinging stuff.
he's not answering any of the qs--
talkleft says so too— http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/13/…
well, that was a waste--
she got asked if God wanted her to be president, but not Mr. “Called to Serve”
he just repeated bits of his stump speech and didn’t answer most questions.
and CNN has one of Bush’s former speechwriters and an “Independent” talking about it now….ugh.
the "independent" is an Obama person.
of course.