Speaking of Small Towns...

I am from a small town that has suffered ups and downs with its economy based solely on the oil field, and, although I am not from Pennsylvania, I am very offended by these remarks from Obama. Our town would have many he considers to "cling" to faith. I don't know anyone who does so because they lost their job. If anything, it would be the other way around. A good many people here own guns. In a rural area, you need them. We get rabid coyotes, foxes, skunks, etc. Nobody here said they started liking guns when the bottom fell out of the oil field ten, twenty, and thirty years ago. And some people here hold on to prejudices. Agriculture and industry around here would not function without many of our friends from south of the border. The prejudices I see are slowly dying as these immigrants have made good lives for themselves and their families here and are contributing to the community.

My point is that when Obama speaks against small town Pennsylvania, he speaks about all of us. How can Obama hope to help the people he doesn't understand? How can any elitist liberals, although well intentioned, help people they look down on? If someone needs food and you give them a car, you are not really helping them.

I hope that something happens and Hillary gets the nomination. I'm Republican and I'll vote republican, but....I would like the other choice to be something I could live with in case my side doesn't win!

Cougar-Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen need to get together to do a concert.....

According to Obama, these are the generalized types of Americans: 1. typical white, 2. typical black and 3.typical bitter. Did Obama join Rev. Wright church because he was bitter or did he see it as an opportunity? Does he continue to call him his mentor and spiritual advisor, because he still is bitter? Obama is presenting himself as an arrogant and bitter black man who has use his faith and the black liberation theology to meet with his deepen distortion of basic American society. There are the very rich, rich , middle-class , poor and the very poor. The President should meet the needs of all and not just the few (very rich and rich).

No doubt about, Hillay will trip over her feet trying to use this situation as a reason to lie. She can't use this situation with a straight face. No only different between her and Obama, he accepted responabity for his words. She repeatedly lies to justify falsehood.

I am sorry but the truth hurts doesn't it.

He was responding to a question that was wondering were these rural communities not
voting for him because he was black.

but before go there let's get some facts

these were not elitest, even the blogger who broke the story has said that they were middle class and upper middle class supporters of which she is one of and has maxed the 2300 deal.

next to the guy who claim's 400k jobs during the Clinton administration

forgive me but Mc Job's aren't real jobs.

if you read the whole statement, not just two paragraph's the whole thing

he didn't say anything that wasn't true

but all things being equal, he probably should have said he was under sniper fire.

It does not matter what the Senator from Illinois says since all news networks will make excuses for him. Sadly, most Americans will follow suit and not truly think of the source. In my view, Pastor Wright had some influence on the Senator from Illinois over 20 years. Like I keep hearing on the streets from Black Americans, soon the rest will get what they deserve when Obama is our President.

Obama might want to check the figures before he blasts the Clinton Administration's record in Pennsylvania. From 1992 - 1999, Pennsylvania added 400,000+ new jobs and unemployment decreased from 7.2% to 4.6%. Of the last four Presidents, it was under Bill Clinton's administration that Pittsburg and Allentown Pennsylvania metro regions saw the fastest growth. Under the Clinton Administration, the number of people on welfare declined by over 300,000 people. In addition, the abortion rate declined as well.

CLINTON / EDWARDS 2008!

As a former Pennsylvanian I lost my job, filed bankruptcy, was foreclosed on, and had to appeal for my unemployment to finally get it 4 months after I initially filed.

To say I was bitter is an understatement to the magnitude of “When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans it sure was wet outside!” I’m just glad there’s a presidential candidate who is not afraid to tell it straight. To have someone like Clinton or McCain blowing smoke up my butt and tell me it’s a cloud with a silver lining just stokes fuel to my fire.

People cling to their guns partly in anger because of facts like the 2nd amendment is repeatedly threatened by people like them, cling to their religion and go to their churches to pray partly in anger because the cries to their government have repeatedly fallen of deaf ears. These are facts that grownups tell to other grown ups. I used my gun to put meat on the table while there was no income coming in, and prayed for work when I didn’t think there was any coming. I was angry about jobs going overseas, and illegal immigrants taking jobs from starving Americans. McCain and Clinton just don’t get it, and now she is so desperate to win, she sets this thing up with the blogger and tape recorder. Then McCain jumps right on the Clinton Sunshine bandwagon. It sickens me to see for opposing parties how much alike they can be!

People are pissed off, and there’s plenty of blame to go around. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard “The snipers shouldn’t have missed in Bosnia!” or “Can’t Cheney take Bush on a hunting trip sometime?!” or “The Zuni rocket hit the wrong plane on the Forrestal!” or “An American hating Black man won’t last a day in the White House!” There’s a lot of anger in America today, and job losses, record oil prices, record gas prices, a recession, and a stock market being supported by the US Government’s main bank is doing nothing but throwing gas on the fire.

On the positive side, I’ve heard more people say that at least there is one candidate who is willing to inspire while being realistic without flip-flopping. That man is Senator Obama. He has sparked hope, and hit the issues head on. That is what grown up Americans are looking for, a refreshing change from a realist not an elitist. So he had to explain it to “Latte sipping elitists” in a manner that they can fathom. Does that make him less of a candidate or more??? I say more!

I appreciate him keeping it real, and I hope he doesn’t cave in and apologize for anything he said. As one of the small town Americans that fit into his description, I say “Tell it like it is!”

OBAMA ‘08

so tired of hearing people say what obama really meant. the worm stuff isn't working any more. people are starting to listen to what obama really SAID. and he said people "cling" to guns and religion and antipathy toward people not like them and anti-trade and anti-immigration.... equating religion with racism, guns, anti-trade, and anti-immigration. religion is NOT the same as a political view such as anti-trade. and it is most definitely not the same as racism.

what his words tell us is what he actually thinks of us. and it's not good.

Sounds like a t-shirt to me:
Typical Bitter Person (clinging to gun)

The crowd in IN did not know what he said he never addressed what he said he did one of those this is what I said and left all he said out .

Richard; The working people of Pennsylvania probably don't have time to check out the far-left Huffington web-site.

They'll rely on friends/family and local columnists who - like many of us tonight - are stunned at Obama's arrogant, elitist comments.

This is the beginning of the end for Obama.

Anybody who thinks these comments are the end of Obama needs to dash over to Huffington Post where they have posted
video of Obama responding to the attacks made by his opponents on his comments. Speaking to a largely white working class town hall meeting in Terra Haute, Indiana, he repeated his analysis of voter bitterness in Pennsylvania. He said what his opponenets reactions and charges were.
He said he understood voters in Pennsylvania and Indiana. The crowd stood and cheered him.

I don't think this will sit well with anyone who is struggling to make ends meet or anyone who has empathy for those who are suffering to make ends meet. That includes Mellencamp and Edwards.

What a distasteful, arrogant thing to say. He thought he was speaking to a PRIVATE group. This wasn't suppose to be heard/known. He's busted. Now everyone knows how arrogant he is. He doesn't give 2 hoots about poor people....they're just bitter for no good reason. Ugh. The man makes me ill.

you don't cling to guns or religion or immigration--he's talking about politically--the republicans always push guns or religion or immigration one issue and the issue of the lost jobs never gets fixed because once the politician has your vote they don't fix anything--i feel bitter just thinking about it--i am prolife but i vote democratic because other than prolife the democratic party cares the most about the middle class and the poor--bush and mccain talk about patriotism and the war and abortion and people vote but the jobs just keep going to china and bush get reelected and take's this country to the worst foregn polity blunder in the history of this country and what do bush and mccain say hey where is you flag pin?

People are indeed bitter. Bitter that a man with an Ivy league education, who somehow was able to buy a house worth over a million dollars on a community organizer/college adjunct salary, and who follows a Marxist religion implies that the common people of PA are not intelligent enough to really see the cause for their bitterness. And, what's wrong with turning to religion in bad as well as good times? If he is the devoutly religious man he says he is, he should be lauding them for turning to God not deriding them. Like many people in the public eye, he has cultivated a brand for himself and believes that once people "buy" the brand that they'll follow him everywhere. If he is so "concerned" about these people in the small towns in Pennsylvania, why he hasn't told them what he thinks is the cause of their bitterness face to face? He is a two-face coward who uses his audiences according to his own political convenience.

Gion - 1 for English in Canada and 2 for French. Deal with your own country before dealing with ours.

Yes next week Obama will give a speech on poverty and small town life written by some skilled Harvard professor and the entire media will get mesmerized with the speech. Also all the super delegates will say this was the best speech they have heard in the last 300 years.

Good job Obama. Get some tonic.

PlainBrown1. Thanks. What a sane post.

I want to make sure I have this straight. The Clinton adminstration signed NAFTA, which took thousands of jobs away from American workers in the rustbelt - so that there are towns in PA where families are trying to live on $20,000 a year. Clinton took almost a million dollars from a Colombian firm so he can do another NAFTA deal, except this time with a country that murders union leaders. The Clintons are worth over $100 Million bucks and live in Westchester County. Obama was raised by a single mother, then by grandparents and went to school on scholarships. After college, he could have taken any job he wanted - but he didn't look at salaries, he looked for a way to make a difference. And people think HE is the elitist? Baloney. If the press expects me to buy this half-baked attempt to shift the attention away from Clinton, Penn and Nafta-Colombia, from the Clinton's offshore millions, and from Hillary's lies because a few badly worded sentences, they are crazy.

Hillary Clinton is starting to sound an awful lot like Ronald Reagan. And yes he won, but if I'm gonna vote for a Republican, it's not gonna be Hillary, it's gonna be John McCain.

JAKE TAPPER

You might want to check for a story in Obama's strategy of purging the superdelegate pool in CA....Could it be that he is removing middle aged white women to increase his chances?