Comments on: Obama’s Response to ‘Bitter’ Uproar

By: DLS

DLS — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:54:14 +0000

“Rural working class voters have gotten the shaft”

It's not just Superdestroyer that's telling y'all this, this year.

By: runasim

runasim — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:33:30 +0000

I like Obama's response to the criticism immensely.

Even though I've been disappointed on some points of his position statemetns, I still think he is the best of the lot.

What I don't like is the uneven doses of understanding alotted to him by his suppprters in comparison to the other candidates. His initial statement was, indeed, clumsy enough to raise leegitimatne question about what exactly did he mean. If McCain or Hillary had made the statement, they would never be forgiven by Obama fans

By: mikkel

mikkel — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:37:04 +0000

Oh yeah, and it's directly led to the foreclosure crisis being worse. Since people can't have their CC debt forgiven they've been paying those off at all costs, even if it means losing their homes. Talk about unintended consequences.

By: mikkel

mikkel — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:36:05 +0000

Thanks JWeidner, I knew she had voted for that one (even if I didn't make it clear) but I was under the assumption it wasn't nearly as bad. However, I have gone back and read summaries of it and it seems about just as bad as the 2005 bill on its main points.

While I think that the Medicare Drug bill is by far the worst bill passed in the last few years, the bankruptcy bill is definitely a close second and strongly hurts characteristics of the US that Europe doesn't have that have led us to be more successful at getting a fresh start. It is really egregious.

By: JWeidner

JWeidner — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:21:47 +0000

Hey Mikkel, just a point of fact – Hillary did vote for the 2001 Bankruptcy Bill. However, the House and Senate versions were not reconciled at that time, which was prior to 9/11. Congress then put off any further discussion about it until 2005, when, you are correct, Hillary did not actually vote on the final version of the Bill. She says she would have voted against it, but she was absent due to Bill C. being in the hospital for surgery. There's probably no reason to doubt her at her word, but there is her vote on the 2001 version to consider…

By: Pyronite

Pyronite — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:13:17 +0000

This is an example of the other P.C.: patriotic correctness. For some reason, you're not allowed to say that Americans are “bitter” if you are a politician — even as our entire political process is summarized by a sense of bitterness people feel towards those in Washington.

As to the areas where they're “expressing their frustration,” Obama included religion and anti-trade sentiment among them. He is both religion and anti-NAFTA.

I don't see how his comments were anything but a statement of reality. His only problem was saying something that could easily be made into a negative soundbite.

By: mikkel

mikkel — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:12:06 +0000

Obama said something that was wrong: Clinton didn't vote for that bankruptcy bill (she didn't vote) and said she was against it. He was referring to her saying a few years before she would support a bill like it but she changed her mind.

Anyway, I think this will go down the same way other things have. He is 100% correct in his first statement. This response is the first one that will make it more clear what he meant (the original did sound like gun rights, religion, etc. were negative as a form of life) which is that people's political views are now shaped by the fringe issues that are intractable. This is exactly what I've thought for years.

Then his follow ups will be about how those feelings aren't just small towns, urban communities share the same feelings and so do suburban but for different reasons and they react to it differently (I can guarantee he is going to target traditional Democratic issues like abortion and affirmative action) but that in all cases people are clinging fundamentally to wedge issues instead of analyzing what they are supposed to accomplish and if they are working. Then he'll go into how it's not him that will change things but that we have to come together and do it.

I give it 2 weeks.

By: jmcdonough120

jmcdonough120 — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:06:50 +0000

from swimming freestyle:

"This video is exactly how Obama should have raised the issue: In the environment these voters live and with an appropriate anger. Rural working class voters have gotten the shaft. They have every right to be frustrated and even bitter about what's happened to them.

Obama now finds himself having to address the issue defensively, Unfortunately, the issue will now likely be obscured by the hysterical anti-Obama rants by the Clintons and McCains. Obama gave them that gift when he spoke in San Francisco last weekend."

http://swimmingfreestyle.typepad.com

By: ChrisWWW

ChrisWWW — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:48:49 +0000

The larger context does not change the spirit of McCain's 100 years comment. McCain has made it clear that one way or the other, our troops can't and should not leave Iraq.

By: HappySurge

HappySurge — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:27:50 +0000

God, look at how elitist he's being!

By: vwcat

vwcat — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:21:42 +0000

Billary, the 109 million dollar couple, are going to make a full scale attack on Obama this weekend over this. I will laugh if it turns against them instead.
Obama is just saying what we in the midwest have been saying for sometime. He is not saying anything elitist. Actually, I think the elitists are the Clintons, who, despite what they say in this campaign, are unrepentant free trade believers. And it was their love of it that opened the floodgates to what has happened to the middle class. And after 2000 got rich off our misery. They have no room to talk.
I do hope the voters see them for what they really are and reject Hillary's attempt to make this into more then it really is.