Obama Takes Heat For Small Town Remarks
Barack Obama is taking heat today for comments claiming that Americans in small towns "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."
Obama's comments were reported earlier Friday by the Web site Huffingtonpost.com. The Web site says he made them at a fundraising event in San Francisco last Sunday. On Friday evening, it posted audio of the comments that verified their accuracy.
"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," he 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 also said. “It comes off very badly,” Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers said of Obama’s small-town America remarks. “They are things that I think in a liberal world sound totally normal, and outside of that world I don’t know that he appreciates how it sounds. And it just sounds very elitist, and it sounds like he’s looking down on people.”
Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Robert Gleason Jr. even weighed in, releasing a statement saying the comments “reveal a condescending elitism.” Political pundit and Republican campaign veteran Mike McCarville of Oklahoma City, interviewed on Sirius Satellite Radio Friday night, said Obama's comments "constitute a serious misstep. How serious will be determined by how much play they get in the mainstream media." He noted that MSNBC and CNN devoted considerable airtime to the remarks late today, "which indicates to me the story may have some legs, and that's not good for Obama."
Obama's comments were reported earlier Friday by the Web site Huffingtonpost.com. The Web site says he made them at a fundraising event in San Francisco last Sunday. On Friday evening, it posted audio of the comments that verified their accuracy.
"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," he 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 also said. “It comes off very badly,” Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers said of Obama’s small-town America remarks. “They are things that I think in a liberal world sound totally normal, and outside of that world I don’t know that he appreciates how it sounds. And it just sounds very elitist, and it sounds like he’s looking down on people.”
Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Robert Gleason Jr. even weighed in, releasing a statement saying the comments “reveal a condescending elitism.” Political pundit and Republican campaign veteran Mike McCarville of Oklahoma City, interviewed on Sirius Satellite Radio Friday night, said Obama's comments "constitute a serious misstep. How serious will be determined by how much play they get in the mainstream media." He noted that MSNBC and CNN devoted considerable airtime to the remarks late today, "which indicates to me the story may have some legs, and that's not good for Obama."
Labels: 2008 Presidential Race, Kirsten Powers, Mike McCarville, Robert Gleason Jr.
posted by Mike McCarville @ 8:45 PM
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