Excellent advice. Think any reporters will take you up on it?

But it's seemed that it's not the campaign reporters who have made such a big deal out of this episode. Bittergate appears to exist almost exclusively in the minds of the DC-based punditry. Since there was no compelling video, it was up to the talkers on TV and radio to keep this one alive. Hillary and McCain did their best to help, but unlike Rev. Wright, this one never really caught on. Could it be that American just doesn't buy a bunch of millionaires calling someone else elitist? Or the fact none of these people know bupkus about small towns? I could be very wrong, but I think we'll be able to look back on this week as providing compelling evidence of just how much the game has changed in politics since 2004. It could be that Obama is just made of teflon. But I suspect Americans have caught on to the fact the media elite are out-of-touch blowhards.

Elme, you're not working for Lyndon LaRouche, are you?

Unless of course it is Senator Clinton. Then it goes directly to the front page and have a bevy of bloggers with the vapors.

Unlike most pundits, I grew up firmly working class (if not outright poor - I ate an awful lot of government cheese). Most of my family is still blue-collar. My question: since when do working-class people consider it bad to be angry, bitter, and pissed-off? Among the well-off, anger is considered bad form. But where I come from, being angry just shows that you're paying attention. I think the chatterers and the professional politicians, with zero experience of working-class life, have seriously misjudged this one. I said from the beginning that this wouldn't hurt Obama in the least, and it sure looks like I was right.

This is a clever analysis, McFly, a bit too clever. In fact, much too clever. Where did you go, Harvard, you elite snob? The good people of PA are indeed very angry with Barack H. Obama. (Not bitter, mind you.) But we're clever too. You think that we tell those elitist pollsters what we really think? LOLOLOLOL!!!! We're just blowing smoke up their bungholes. Just wait 'til Tuesday. We're going to come out of the hills like the armies of God and kick some "statistically significant" Obama butt.

Great recommendations. Unfortunately, such reasonable restraint will never happen, at least with the big, commercial news networks.

Such controversies are products that are carefully packaged to be sold. Each little event, regardless how inane, gets immediately branded with a titillating catchphrase -- throw in a few of dramatic sound bites and an out-of-proportion level of hype -- and it's InstaControversy!

It's really no different from the music business. They just keep throwing out whatever junk they can get hoping for the one occasional hit that will sell big for them.

One more important thing is that the whole context of the "outrage" was rightwing in tone.

I'm a liberal and I wouldn't mind if a Democratic politician criticized the wedge issues of gods, guns, gays, abortion. In fact, I think the GOP is wrong on all of those issues.

Why does the MSM automatically decide that the GOP positions are untouchable and that the working class voters are all in agreement with the Right?

FYI, PA voted against Bush twice. So it's not that conservative. Why the kneejerk assumption by Washington and New York media/news people that "oh, those redneck blue collar voters are gonna be angry about this one -- he said "guns"!!!" "Oh no, San Fran?? The horror!!" "Criticize xenophobia??? How dare he!"

The media narrative on this has been from a purely rightwing perspective. I find the assumptions here shockingly partisan.

But it's seemed that it's not the campaign reporters who have made such a big deal out of this episode. Bittergate appears to exist almost exclusively in the minds of the DC-based punditry.

That's what makes this so delicious, and with a little time and perspective, I think it will dawn on a lot of people just who it was accusing Obama of being elitist - Kristol? Are you fucking kidding me? That's very definition of irony.

In a few weeks, this is going to look like one of the funniest things that happened in this campaign - all the outraged "men of the people" - furious over the elitism of someone who never had the kind of east coast upper class lives they themselves have always had. It's deliciously funny on that level.

It's a bunch of people standing around at a cocktail party in the Hamptons getting outraged at Obama daring to speak to the problems of small town America.

I'd like to know when it was that all "working class" and "blue collar" voters became white? That seems to be the working assumption for a lot of people in the media and it perplexes me.

Outstanding post as always, FlyOnTheWall, and also some interesting and thoughtful comments. I appreciate Josh's link, or I might've missed it.

You've all put into words something that's been bugging me, too, but I was a bit slower on the uptake. I think it was in Newsweek, or maybe Time, couple weeks ago--Joe Klein, maybe? or Jonathan Alter?--about how the media is not really biased against one candidate or another, or one gender or another, or one race or another--what they are biased toward and addicted to is CONTROVERSY. And if they're not gettin' any, so to speak, they will INVENT some.

From all I've read, and what I know from small-town living, the people most outraged by the remarks do not themselves live in small towns and are not themselves "working class."

Every time Hillary refers to her childhood lakehouse as a "cottage," I look at the photo shown with the remarks, and think, "Wow, it's got two stories and a nice big front porch. It's bigger than my 100-year old farmhouse. Some COTTAGE.")

Obama has a tendency to speak truth, get hammered over it, and then be proved right.

People in small towns tend to live there all their lives; often, they go to the same elementary school that their moms and dads went to. If they go to college, it's usually within a hundred-mile radius; they tend to come home every weekend, and they usually return home to raise their kids and teach or work in the local industries.

So when major factories or industries shut down for whatever reason, not only do hundreds lose their jobs, but the whole town starts to dry up. Businesses close, schools are consolidated and closed. And it's real easy to say, well, why don't they just move to where the jobs are? Because it's HOME and they don't want to, or are afraid to, leave. Or they do, and are utterly miserable in strange towns among strangers. Homesick and helpless.

This dying out of small towns and their populations is a terrible problem in rural areas where industry has dried up, and the devastation can be felt for generations.

There is absolutely nothing "elitist" about stating that simple truth, and anyone who thinks so has not had the experiences these people have had. It is very, very sad, and the repurcussions--divorce, alcoholism, family violence, are real.

The truth is that the only hope Hillary's campaign had was that Obama would make some sort of terrible mis-step that they could grind on and maybe cost him the election. They thought this was it. So did the punditocracy. Yay! A new controversy to exploit!

But I'd like to see one of those commentators try to support a family on ten bucks an hour, worrying that their kid's high school is going to close down, wondering if they ought to move to find a better job but knowing that they can't really afford to right now, watching their marriage disintegrate, feeling trapped and angry, and then go on-camera and see if they can mouth about "elitism," or even care what the hell the word means.

Obama has a tendency to speak truth, get hammered over it, and then be proved right.

Yes - that's exactly what he's done every time.

You and SCMadden both are right about that.

I think that is what keeps getting through to people - or I hope so anyway. That hit me early on.

Let's conduct a brief thought-experiment:

Supposing you WERE feeling bitter & alienated by politics. Who do you listen to, 1) Hillary Clinton telling you're not, or 2) Barack Obama talking about why you're feeling bitter, and what will change things?

For most people, the answer depends on how you feel about Obama. If you think he's an outsider, or that he's merely pandering, your pride gets stung and you say "I most certainly am NOT!" ~ that's the crowd Hillary's playing for. Her problem is that everyone knows she's also pandering while she says it, so even if that's your reaction it doesn't make you any more likely to trust Hillary.

If, on the other hand, you think that Barack Obama comes from inside your tribe (however you define tribe) or that he's genuine, then you have a very different reaction: you think "Right on!"

What Obama has been proving over and over this primary season is that he's much better at being accepted as an insider than the bulk of the punditocracy will acknowlege. Yes, there are people for whom he'll never get the insider license to talk about painful subjects. That's clear. Are these enough to lose an election? Maybe not.

Obama's great strength is sincerity. He's genuine. When he says what he thinks, people can believe that he really thinks it and despite ideology, he's acting in good faith. So far, this is the ace that has enabled him to provoke more type 2) than 1) reactions.

Is there not a certain arrogance by the MSM to conclude that polls are driven by what they choose to report on and repeat over and over again?

Are they overestimating their own influence?

Where ya been, cuz? They have been at the center of all their stories for years now - the entire press is busy reporting on themselves most of the time - how they approached the subject, what they learned, what they think.

It's meta to the max-a

Hey, this is another B.S. brouhaha cooked up by the HClinton Campaign and magnified by the Media. Hillary has learned her lesson well from Rove, alas. She seizes on something that can be construed in a thousand different ways, and frames it, turns it into a "condescending" comment by Barack. This, unfortunately, has begun turning me off Hillary, when I felt positive about her before. It is also the game the Media plays because they have nothing of substance to write about, and they love to see feuds and infighting among all the candidates because it generates reams of copy for which they get paid and then they can consider it all a horse race and speculate about winners and losers. A game is all it is. The pot (Hillary) is calling the Kettle (Obama) black (no sarcasm implied although it may be misconstrued as such [chuckle]). And all of you join in the game of wagging about it, magnifying it, minimizing the importance of the real issues and whether they are being addressed. Hillary is elitist, Obama is elitist, McCain is elitist, FDR was a patrician elitist, but good ole George Bush successfully pretended he wasn't rich, didn't go to an Ivy League school, was a Texan, and was just a simple working frat buddy, and see how much of a populist he is. What a load of crap! Write, please, about important things.

Of all the gaffes and scandels of the 2008 primary, I think the Bosnia sniper story will go down as the most memorable and the one that "stuck" wth voters.

From the Washington Post today:

Clinton is viewed as "honest and trustworthy" by just 39 percent of Americans, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, compared with 52 percent in May 2006. Nearly six in 10 said in the new poll that she is not honest and trustworthy. And now, compared with Obama, Clinton has a deep trust deficit among Democrats, trailing him by 23 points as the more honest, an area on which she once led both Obama and John Edwards. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/15/AR2008041502883.html

I don't know if anyone else saw what I saw tonight. As Josh said, Obama was not at the top of his form. He seemed a little overwhelmed and uncomfortable at times, though he never folded under the pressure. Perhaps exasperated would be a better word, tired of the same old nonsense repeated once again, as if that was REALLY what the voters were asking about.

On the other hand, to me, Hillary seemed relieved and even upbeat, in a subdued way. She was very smooth, and extremely honest, and I think I know why. I think in her mind, she has accepted it is over. Although not ready to make a public announcement ahead of the PA primary, I think she is preparing the foundation now.

I believe we are already seeing the backlash from this ABC hack job, and frankly it did nothing but create sympathy for Obama. It's like continuing to punch someone after the bell. The studio audience was in rebellion by the end of the telecast - they knew what was happening.

There is a good chance that this will swing votes in Obama's direction, which will make it even easier on Hillary. She said Obama CAN win against McCain - she said it three times for emphasis. She said she is ready to heal the rift in the party. She said she will do anything she can to help put a democrat in the White House.

She is no longer burning bridges. If she somehow receives the gift of an overwhelming win in PA, I think she will continue. But if she gets a marginal victory it will end here. She has already prepared the way for concession.