What Sen. Obama said is that over the last 25-30 years, working class people in places like Pennsylvania have been falling behind, and that politicians in Washington haven’t been looking out for them.

It would've been funnier if he had said 35 years. Possibly not appropriate, but funny. :)

I think the lashback is in full swing... and in Western PA, no less. Clinton has overreached by several orders of magnitude here, she should have brought it up once and said she disagreed, but she has been in full duck-hunting mode for four days now, and playing small town Americans for fools shows she didn't spend much of her young life in the Northeast. People tell it like it is there, and they don't like being lied to or condescended to, and we know which campaign is doing that - the one with the duck rifle.

Did anyone see the latest ad from HRC in PA?

This is appalling, she is using the same strategy as Texas with the 3AM, but this time this is even worse to my humble opinion...

The kitchen strategy is back with a vengeance...

And I hope the democrats PA will make the right decision to end this...
and could someone explain me why the Super Delegates still let Clinton to go on the path war, and tearing down Senator Obama, and the democratic party...

Wow, very impressive. Have you seen Clinton's list? Have you seen the best pollster in the USA -Survey USA's latest poll from Indiana? Clinton ahead by 18 pts. Pennsylvannia? Survey USA 18 pts., ARG 20 pts. Eat your heart out Josh.

Sorry Hillary and crew, that old dog of yours just don't hunt anymore.

Also John Fetterman, mayor of Braddock, PA, a truly depressed former steel town, who sent around a personal version of the letter along with a link to the original that Obama supporters can sign.

http://pa.barackobama.com/page/s/paletter

Clearly these mayors are Obama supporters, because they used his talking point. They followed his lead and presented an argument to the notion that the whole flap arose over whether or not the people are bitter. But the real problem for Obama is not whether or not he is right about people being bitter. The real controversy is over his attitude as revealed to elitist San Francisco donors when Obama condescendingly defined small-town Pennsylvanians, their adherence to their faith, and their core values. Obama wants this whole thing to be about whether or not people are bitter. He does not want his viewpoint examined. He can defend his use of the word "bitter" by saying that people really are angry. But it is what we learned about Obama's cynical and imperious attitude that damages him.

See, its what they said...it proves I am not an Elitist latte drinker...= barack obama

Clever but doesn't address the issue.

If Obama could get one of them to agree with him that bitter Pennsylvanians are clinging to guns and religion, I'd be impressed.

But they won't because that would be the end of their political careers.

If Obama's the bad guy, why did Hillary fire her Iowa staff and leave without paying them?

Obama makes a very accurate statement and gets pilloried by Hillary...

Hillary leaves a lot of campaign people who worked their hearts out for her, high and dry, and no one in the media even mentions it.

What we got here is a failure to communicate.

http://realclearpolitics.com/ Early Morning Update

Obama is 6 for 6. I don't think his hate speech against small town USA, religion and guns will work. Rev. Jerry Wright for Obama's VP. What a team!

Didn't anyone else think he was speaking with compassion for working class whites, rather than contempt? The same kind of empathy he demonstrated in the Philadelphia race speech? The only true contempt I've heard in this whole brouhaha is in Hillary's voice as she pillories a fellow Democrat and insults her listeners by misrepresenting what he said and assuming they'll swallow it without question.

A message from my son to one of the signatories to the letter, Corporal Carl Majji, U.S. Army:

"HUA"

Two facts that are left out of the discussion of this entire "bitter" discussion. 1)Obama was responding to a question about what causes resistance to his candidacy with some PA voters. 2) He was mainly referring to working class voters that vote Republican, in spite of the fact that Republicans routinely offer them little economic help, while giving tax breaks to the rich. He wasn't talking about voters preferring HRC to him. These 2 facts make a lot of difference in understanding the issue.

Yeah, this wasn't a speech or a policy paper - this was the answer to a straightforward question.

Fuck Hillary Clinton, fuck Gagin, Fuck all of them for making this into a fight over the honest answer to a direct question.

I am a plain spoken old man. Here are some of my plain thoughts on why Hillary is bad for our party.

The Republicans are the ones who have shipped all those small town jobs overseas, with the help of Bill and Hillary.

The Republicans are the ones who have eradicated the American manufacturing base that provided jobs for those who were not capable of getting a college degree.
Here is some plain truth for you: College is not for everyone. We all know that, but yet we keep letting politicians get away with claiming that a college education, for all, is the solution to all our economic woes. That is complete bullshit. If some one is not smart enough to earn a degree then why the hell should we pretend that they are.

We can not afford to educate all of the best and the brightest now, so where is all the money supposed to come from to send all the rest to college.

Some people are born with the capacity to be great scientists or doctors or teachers. Many are not.

Many of them need to earn a decent middle class income using their hands. Manufacturing and textiles plants used to provide them with good jobs.

The Republicans and The Clintons have send all those jobs overseas.

While they were doing so, they conned the communities that were bitter about watching their jobs, pensions, health coverage, and standards of living being eradicated, with scare tactics about how Liberals are going to take away the only things that you have left.

The Republicans scared the hell out of people, who were all ready traumatized from having their economic security stolen, by brain washing with horse shit warnings that The Democrats were coming to take away their Religion and their Sporting and Hunting guns.

For good measure, the Republicans scared the vulnerable people into accepting that The Democrats were going to "give them gay" in the words of Homer Simpson.

We all know this is the truth. That is what Senator Obama was talking about.

The Republicans stole all the good blue collar jobs, and shipped them overseas to near slave labor nations, while all the while distracting those they were ripping off with an avalanche of God, Guns, and Gays, Fear Mongering.

Hillary knows that is what happened. If she had a single drop of moral courage and honest leadership in her body, she would have stood up and declared that Senator Obama is telling you the truth.

She did not do that. She is not capable of taking such a principled stand with a fellow Democrat. She is unworthy of our support, and she is unworthy to lead our party.

We can do better. We must.

This exhaustive, 24/7 media coverage of a single remark, and the chorus of "this is the end" from Obama's opponents is absurd. Clinton and McCain have done/said dozens of things that could be touted as "the end" of their respective campaigns if given similar focus.

Power-brokers remember their success with the clip of Howard Dean and think they can repeat it at will with any candidate. The real condescension is on the part of the Clinton campaign (and Republicans who desperately want her as their opponent in the Fall) - the presumption that voters are dim-witted enough to buy the spin and give up Obama.

Voters are taking back the democratic process from the media moguls and spin-meisters and the Rove/Penn "strategists" and it starts here.
(comment also posted on another thread).

GETTYSBURG, PA. — After a two days of intense fighting with no clear advantage gained by either side, Hillary Clinton has marshaled 100 mayors from all over Pennsylvania in preparation for what will be an overwhelming use of force in an effort to crush the Obama Pennsylvania campaign.

At noon today, 100 mayors from all over Pennsylvania will gather to before the news media in full-election year regalia (including prominently displayed flag lapel-pins), to complain bitterly without appearing to be bitter about being referred to as “bitter”. The event will be led by Clinton campaign official, George Pickett.

Obama’s forces, comprised of only twenty-one elected officials and community leaders from small towns and rural areas throughout Pennsylvania--and armed only with a letter of support--will attempt to repel this media onslaught. Out numbered five-to-one, it is unclear at this point whether the moral high-ground will be sufficient to allow the Obama campaign to hold their position in the polls, said Obama campaign spokesman, George Meade. The latest poll from Cemetery Ridge Consulting showing Obama at this point neither gaining nor losing ground.

With superior numbers in place, and impressive media attention ready to support the advance, Clinton’s forces appear to be poised to win the day, and thus the Battle for Pennsylvania. However, a Clinton campaign official, Jim Longstreet, was overheard to say privately that he did not think that this strategy would be effective, and raised some concerns about whether Clinton’s forces would be able to cover enough ground quickly enough to avoid a rout.