Reuters accurately sums up the state of the presidential race in its lede, which explicitly groups Hillary Clinton and John McCain together as the “rivals” of Barack Obama who both attacked him today:
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama came under fire on Friday for saying small-town Pennsylvania residents were “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion,” in comments his rivals said showed an elitist view of the middle class.
Obama’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain both pounced on the comments Obama made last weekend at a fundraiser in San Francisco.
Pretty unbelievable.
PS Here’s the quote:
“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,” Obama, an Illinois senator, said.
“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,” he said.
Assuming (reasonably) that Obama meant “they” to apply to some people in those towns rather than everyone, this is a classic Kinsley gaffe — what Obama said is true but extremely impolitic to say, especially given his weaknesses with downscale white voters.
Update 4/12 9:09 AM: On reflection, Rob is right that the comment is condescending and elitist.
He cites Mickey Kaus’s take, which I find persuasive. Kaus argues that Obama’s race speech and this statement attribute various conservative attitudes on social issues (opposition to affirmative action and illegal immigration, support for gun rights, a devotion to evangelical religion) as the result of economic disclocation. While Obama’s rhetoric may be accurate for some people, it implicitly denies the possibility that people sincerely oppose affirmative action, believe in the right to own guns, etc. for legitimate non-ideological reasons.
The always-suspect Michael Lind nevertheless sends around a useful commentary on Obama’s gruesomely off-key condscension toward downscale Rustbelt voters:
According to Obama, working class (white) people “cling to guns” because they are bitter at losing their manufacturing jobs.
Excuse me? Hunting is part of working-class American culture. Does Obama really think that working-class whites in Pennsylvania were gun control liberals until their industries were downsized, whereas they all rushed to join the NRA …
I used to think working class voters had conservative values because they were bitter about their economic circumstances–welfare and immigrants were “scapegoats,” part of the false consciousness that would disappear when everyone was guaranteed a good job at good wages. Then I left college. …
P.S.: Because Obama’s comments are clearly a Category II Kinsley Gaffe–in which the candidate accidentally says what he really thinks–it will be hard for Obama to explain away. [He could say he was tired and it was late at night?–ed But he was similarly condescending in his big, heartfelt, well-prepared “race speech” when he explained white anger over welfare and affirmative action as a displacement of the bitterness that comes when whites
are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition …
Obama’s new restatement confirms the Marxist Deskwork interpretation of the race speech, removing any honest doubt as to his actual attitude.
Rather than trying to spin his way out, wouldn’t it be better for Obama to forthrightly admit his identity? Let’s have a national dialogue about egghead condescension!]
P.P.S.: Note that guns are not the only thing Obama says “white working class” people “cling” to for economic reasons:
[I]t’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. [E.A.]
Hmm. Isn’t Obama the one who has been clinging to religion lately? Does he cling to his religion for authentic reasons while those poor Pennsylvania slobs cling to it as a way to “explain their frustrations”? … They worship an awesome God in the blue states because they’re bitter about stagnant wages! I think that’s what he said in his 2004 convention address …
Here’s Kaus’s original post on Obama’s race speech:
Marc Ambinder gives Obama credit for saying “white resentments … are grounded in legitimate concerns.” The problem is he said that only after the populist passage cited above. The clear implication was not that resentment about welfare and affirmative action was “legitimate,” but that these resentments were actually misguided symptoms of the legitimate anxiety, which would be anxiety over “stagnant wages,” etc. caused by “corporate … greed” etc.. … If you think concern over welfare and affirmative action has an independent, legitimate basis apart from anxieties about the “middle class squeeze,” it’s highly condescending for Obama to tell whites (and similarly disposed blacks, for that matter) that, in effect, that they suffer from false consciousness–‘I know you’re really concerned about economics and declining wages and in your anxiety you let yourself be distracted into blaming welfare and affirmative action.’ But that’s what he says, as I read it and heard it…
And here’s the relevant passage from Obama’s race speech:
[A] similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.