…

“In this early foray into politics, Obama revealed the toughness and brashness that this year’s long primary season brought into view. As Burns, who has a mischievous sense of humor and a gift for mimicry, recalled, “Black activists, community folks, felt that he didn’t respect their role”—Burns imitated a self-righteous activist—“in the _struggle_ and the _movement_. He didn’t engage in obeisance to them. He wanted to get the job done. And Barack’s cheap, too. If you can’t do it and do it in a cost-effective manner, you’re not going to work with him.” Ivory Mitchell, the ward chairman in Obama’s neighborhood, says of Obama that “he was typical of what most aspiring politicians are: self-centered—that ‘I can do anything and I’m willing to do it overnight.’ ”

NOTE that Clinton supporters who preferred her over Obama not only did so out of their own Identity Politics (reverse-sexism pro-woman preference) but they were of the older generation and Democratic establishment and holding a similar position, not only with the women's rights movement but with older traditional Democratic-interest-group-based welfare-state politics. They probably saw Obama as an interloper, not merely someone who was unfaithful to the “gospel.”

“Why are there sportsmen for Obama? Or for that matter, nearly a dozen paid Obama staffers in Montana, a state that Democrats have won only twice in the last 50 years? Surely, its three electoral votes are not the draw.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/opinion/16ega...

Also note:

“Obama has fully staffed offices in five cities in Montana. He’s visited the state three times, and he’s on the air with television ads. Senator John McCain has no paid staff and has yet to set foot here.”