I agree. The truth hurts.

Jonathan Stein,

Please POST this video of BILL CLINTON saying that middle america votes on GOD GAY AND GUNS....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYaJHAnmjtk

It is amazing that Bill video wasnt played a lot during "BITTERGATE"....the media is a joke.

OR HOW ABOUT HILLARY SAYING "SCREW SMALL TOWN AMERICA"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/16/hillary-clinton-on-workin_n_97017.html

The public has been propagandized to believe RIGHT WING RHETORIC. Pat Buchanan has said "dividing the Democrats" was originally a plan of the Nixon administration. That Nixonian plan has been carried out AGAINST THE PUBLIC in all Republican and DLC Democrat administrations since Nixon even to the propagandizing of the United States public by the RIGHT WING and the Pentagon's military that the RIGHT WING Bush administration controls. When the RIGHT WING LOBBYIST led DLC was originated and put in place it was a dividing of the Democrats and as long as the DLC is an organization in the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party will be divided, just like the RIGHT WING NIXON administration wanted in order to suck the liberal public into the conservative agenda against their best interest and into the interest of the CONSERVATIVE RIGHT WING EXTREME WAR AGENDA.

On the contrary, I'd like to see Obama begin a "We've been taken" tour. For these working-class Americans have been bamboozled into believing that it was in their economic best interest to be on the "limit government" side, the "strong defense" side, the "less regulation" side. They all sound so good - until you know the whole story, and how the benefits accrue only to the rich.

If you can't see the glaring difference in the quotes, you are either so far up Obama's backside or incapable of simple english comprehension.

Both Webb and Clinton acknowledge how these wedge issues are used to have working class people vote against their own best interest. What Obama did was not that but actually insult these people for having (or clinging) religion or guns as a central role in their lives and culture. The difference is wider than the grand canyon and anyone not in the tank for Obama could see it.

Newport News Dem,

Stating that people in Penn. (esp. central Penn where I've have visited every year for the past 46 years) cling to guns and religion is a statement of fact, it is only an insult if you feel these values are ill-founded and deleterious, which obviously you do, or you wouldn't be upset. Truth hurts.

Here is the full quote from Obama: The question was something like how do you reach those people who are totally closed to your message....

OBAMA: So, it depends on where you are, but I think it's fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre...I think they're misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work -- don't wanna vote for the black guy.' That's...there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it's sort of a race thing.
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.

Newport,

What a grand canyon difference?

Agreed Christian. Obama is saying essentially the same thing as Webb. His only mistake was using terms, like 'cling' and 'bitter', that can be turned and used perjoratively in the context of a soundbite.