Obama Says Small-Town America is Bitter, Hillary Cries Elitist!

Bitterness reigns in small town America and presidential candidate Ping Pong tournaments have rarely been this exciting. Hillary Clinton smacked the ball across the table to Obama and he fumbled with one ill-placed word, "Bitter." In the next play, Hillary cried "Elitist!" and the game's pace quickened.

The latest Obama/Clinton battle began at a fundraiser Obama was attending. Obama has not always fared well with the working class small-town vote and gave his opinion about why that is. He mentioned the continuing problems with joblessness and small-town America's diminished faith in the ability or willingness of the government to solve problems working class citizens face. Obama said, "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."

Naturally, someone audiotaped these remarks and sent them to the press.

Whoops! Obama, you missed that ball, gave Hillary a point, and now it is her turn.

Obama could have (and probably should have) used a different word, such as jaded or frustrated , but he used the word bitter, which apparently has very negative connotations for some people, especially when the implication is that this bitterness is why working class people are supposedly drawn to certain issues.

Obama later tried to explain that he only meant that these people don't have faith in the government. A Time article (see link below) "Will Obama Pay for 'Bitter' Flap," by Jay Newton-Small, mentions an Obama quote from a North Carolina Newspaper:

"People end up- they don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody's going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington."