I know I am a few days late commenting on this issue, but I’ve needed time to think about the comment and what Barack Obama was trying to get at. Once finding the full text of the comment (not just the sound bite being used by all the media outlets), Obama is becoming more and more of an enigma to me. If I read it one way, Obama himself comes across as bitter because he discusses his racial background in context with Ohio and Pennsylvania. In another way, he comes across as an elitist since it sounds like he is talking down to those who have lived a difficult life trying to find comfort in things that give them happiness and/or hope. But also, it comes across as yet another off-the-cuff comment by Obama that wasn’t rehearsed and filtered by his writing staff prior to giving the speech.

So, I want to hear your opinions on this. Is he bitter? Is he an elitist? Or is it something else? Below you will find the quote in context for reference.

From the Huffington Post:

Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).

But — so the questions you’re most likely to get about me, ‘Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What’s the concrete thing?’ What they wanna hear is — so, we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing — close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide health care for every American. So we’ll go down a series of talking points.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. 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. 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. So it’s not surprising then that 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.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you’ll find is, is that people of every background — there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you’re doing what you’re doing.

For some additional reading, check out these sites:
Arizona Central – “Obama ‘bitter’ quote criticized by rivals”
CBN News – “Obama’s ‘Bitter’ Comment”
USA Today – “Clinton plays up Obama’s ‘bitter’ quote as ‘elitist’”
The Washington Post – “Obama Expands on ‘Bitter’ Pennsylvania Comment”
MSNBC – “HRC: Obama says Pennsylvanians ‘Bitter’”

For some additional reading across the web, check out these blogs:
Obama WTF? – “Out of touch Obama insults America’s working men and women”
Globally Rational – “Bittergate: taking politics out of context”
Texan Democrat – “Anger, Bitterness and Small-Town America”
Blanca DeBree Blog – “Obama Is an Elitist”
First Door on the Left – “Clinton’s diversion”

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