Ah, yes, here we see it--some good old-fashioned liberalism from Senator Obama. Yes, those small-town people who talk about the right to own a gun, who go to conservative churches every Sunday, who think that illegal immigration is a real problem in this country, who espouse other conservative beliefs...see, they can't be expressing real thoughts and beliefs that should be taken seriously. They don't have a legitimate belief system about which we should debate. Oh, no, they're simply resentful, angry people, ticked off at losing a job, taking it out on the poor and the less fortunate, acting out in violence. They have no ideas or beliefs; they simply have anger and resentment. Or so, in any case, goes the thinking of many contemptuous liberals; it's gotten them into trouble before, and it will likely get Senator Obama into trouble here. And it's sad that the Senator thinks this way. Go get him.
From Ben Smith of The Politico, who seems to be a pretty straight-shooting observer of the Democratic primary season--apparently Obama said this at a San Francisco fund-raiser, commenting on the difficulties of campaigning in small-town Pennsylvania:
"You go into 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. And it's not surprising then 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."
