The 'bitter' sweet symphony
Posted: Monday, April 14, 2008 9:11 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Per the campaign, Obama plans to use his speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors today to turn the table on the question of who is most in touch with the American people. "John McCain’s 26 years in Washington have not left him in touch with what America needs to lift its workers right now and if he wants a debate this fall about who's out of touch with the hopes and struggles of working America, that's a debate Barack Obama's happy to have,” the campaign says. “After eight years of George Bush's failed economic policies -- that McCain wants to continue -- and decades of a philosophy that tells working Americans they're on their own, it's a debate we need to have. With George Bush’s dismal economic record, we don't blame John McCain for wanting to talk about something else, but we won't let this election turn on the same distractions that have stopped us from making progress in the past, and we don't think the American people will either."
To make her electability point at last night’s Compassion forum, Clinton -- sort of -- took a shot at Gore and Kerry at last night's religious forum. Check it out, per the Washington Post: “‘We had two very good men, and men of faith, run for president in 2000 and 2004. But large segments of the electorate concluded that they did not really understand or relate to or frankly respect their ways of life,’ Clinton said at Messiah College, referring to former vice president Al Gore and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.). She repeated her view that Obama had been ‘elitist . . . and, frankly, patronizing.’”
More from Post: "Obama was questioned at the start of his session about his reference to religion in his small-town remarks -- perhaps the most controversial word he uttered. Describing the Pennsylvania political landscape at a private fundraiser last Sunday in San Francisco, Obama told of how people ‘cling’ to such issues as religion and guns when they become disillusioned by hard economic times and by politicians who promise much but deliver little. Speaking in a measured tone, Obama stressed that the reference was meant as positive and noted his experience as a community organizer with Chicago churches, assisting workers of a steel plant that had just closed. ‘Religion is a bulwark, a foundation when other things aren't going well,’ Obama said. ‘That's true in my own life, through trials and tribulations. And so what I was referring to was in no way demeaning a faith that I, myself, embrace.’”
The New York Times: “A candidate forum devoted to issues of faith and justice became another flash point for Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton to spar in their intensifying nominating fight, with the candidates exchanging frosty glances Sunday night as their paths briefly crossed on stage… Their cold, quick encounter as they traded places on the stage reflected the hostility between them over the past two days.”
The Times’ Stanley notes the irony of Clinton criticizing Obama at the Compassion forum. Clinton “showed no mercy at the ‘compassion forum.’” More: “When it was his turn, Mr. Obama tried to explain that his remark, which he said was ‘clumsy,’ had been misunderstood by critics and distorted for political gain by Mrs. Clinton… But the television camera has a way of zooming in on discomfort. Mr. Obama sounded defensive, and his explanations were stilted and uneven.”
Meanwhile, the war of words between Clinton and Obama over Obama's small-town remarks is getting quite harsh. Here's Obama earlier yesterday: “‘Shame on her. She knows better,’ Obama said of Clinton. He mocked his rival for recalling her childhood hunting experiences on the campaign trail earlier in the day. ‘She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsman, how she values the Second Amendment. She's talking like she's Annie Oakley,’ Obama said, invoking the famed Wild West sharpshooter.
“‘Hillary Clinton is out there like she's on the duck blind every Sunday," he continued, laughing. ‘She's packing a six-shooter. Come on, she knows better. That's some politics being played by Hillary Clinton.’ Earlier in the day, Clinton seemed frustrated when a reporter asked when she had last attended church or fired a gun. ‘That is not a relevant question for this debate,’ Clinton said. "We can answer that some other time. I went to church on Easter, so . . . but that is not what this is about.’”
The Boston Globe wraps the “bitter” flap over the weekend. “Clinton attacked Obama's remarks much more harshly [Saturday] than she had the night before, calling them ‘demeaning.’ Her aides feel Obama has given them a big opening, pulling the spotlight away from more troubling stories such as former President Clinton's recent revisiting of his wife's misstatements about an airport landing in Bosnia 10 years ago.”
As with Obama’s speech on race, these comments about small-town angst are starting an interesting debate about the state of small-town America. The Philly Daily News' Baer: "As a native-born, small-town Pennsylvanian, a son of native-born, small-town Pennsylvania parents - one from the coal region, one from Lancaster County - let me assure you that the so-called offensive, condescending things Barack Obama said about the people I come from are basically right on target. ‘Bitter’ perhaps best describes my late mother, an angry Irish Catholic who absolutely clung to her religion.”
“Dad, also a journalist, wasn't really bitter as far as I know, but he sure liked to hunt. So, despite carping from Hillary Clinton and annoying yapping from her surrogates (really, it's like turning on the lights at night in a puppy farm), I take no offense. What's offensive to me is suggesting that small-town, working-class, gun-toting and/or religious Pennsylvanians are somehow injured by a politician's words."
The New York Daily News’ Errol Louis also backs up Obama in his lead: “Barack Obama's clumsy musings about Pennsylvanians in economically distressed small towns -- ‘They get bitter; they cling to guns or religion’ -- is being touted by pundits as proof the Democratic frontrunner can't win the White House. The critics are wrong. Obama's bluntness probably didn't win him many new friends -- but the early read from the Keystone State is that voters see the flap as more right than wrong.”
USA Today struggled to find many man-on-the-street interviewees who were outraged by Obama's comments.
