Note to Barry Obama. San Francisco is NOT Las Vegas. What happens in San Francisco doesn’t stay in San Francisco — especially when you’re a presidential candidate. Hardly suprising that the real Obama would shine through when he was among his liberal bretheren.
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama came under fire on Friday for saying that small-town Pennsylvania residents were “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion,” in comments that his rivals said showed an elitist view of the middle class.
Obama’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain both pounced on the comments that Obama made last weekend at a fund-raiser in San Francisco.
Video of the fund-raiser, which was closed to the press, surfaced as Obama was campaigning in Indiana, trying to highlight issues of concern to working-class voters, such as job losses and rising mortgage foreclosures.
“You go into some of 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, an Illinois senator, said.
“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,” he said.
Team McCain hit it out of the park with their response:
An aide to McCain, who will run against either Obama or Clinton in November, called the fund-raiser comments “remarkable and extremely revealing.”
“It shows an elitism and condescension toward hard-working Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking,” Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to the Arizona senator. “It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans.”
Why wouldn’t Barry be out of touch? He grew up in Hawaii and by his own account spent his time in high school “smoking weed and doing blow” on the beach. Hardly the experience of the average middle-class American.
UPDATE: Here’s audio
Filed under: 2008 Elections, Democrats, Elitists, Liberals, Teleprompter Barry
[...] Riley found this video: [...]
[...] Virginia Virtucon, Leslie [...]
[...] Riley has more details. [...]
Has anyone just took a long look at the hate for America that is build up in Obama’s eyes by Rev. Wright and the Nation of Islam? Just take a few seconds and look and you shall see who Obama really is.
They get bitter and cling to religion, huh? Wonder if he was talking about his pastor…
[...] remarks about Pennsylvania voters (you know, the small-minded bigoted ones): Leslie Carbone, Riley at Virtucon, Scott’s Morning Brew, J.R. at Bearing Drift. There will be others. [...]
[...] Posted on April 12, 2008 by Riley Seems that Barry Obama’s derogatory comments about mainstream, middle-class and blue collar Americans that he made in the liberal haven of San [...]