April 13, 2008
Barack Obama's Flip Side Revealed
Politico: Candidate Has Had Moments Of Aloofness Or Tone Deaf Reactions
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Play CBS Video Video Obama's Words May Cost Him Locked in a tight race for Pennsylvania Democrats, Sen. Barack Obama's own words may cost him support. Randall Pinkston reports.
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Video Democratic Battleground Hillary Clinton is on the offense in Pennsylvania, after Barack Obama's controversial comments about small town voters drew criticism. Dean Reynolds reports.
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Video Obama's 'Bitter' Remark Barack Obama touched off a political firestorm when he called blue-collar voters "bitter." Opponents in both parties were quick to attack his remarks as "elitist." Randall Pinkston reports.
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Barack Obama carries a political persona that draws on many origins. He is the son of a single mother who grew up middle class in Hawaii and worked as a community organizer in the poorest neighborhoods of Chicago. But he is also the Harvard Law Review president who knows well - occasionally too well - that he is smart and successful. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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Photo Essay Barack Obama A look at the life and meteoric rise of the president-elect.
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Video Library Scenes From The Road Watch exclusive video from CBS News reporters traveling with the candidates.
Barack Obama’s remarks on small town America were an off-key note from a politician who has rocketed to the top by being brilliantly on-key.
At the same time, the comments were not a total departure: On the campaign trail, Obama can reveal moments of aloofness or tone deaf reactions that belie his image as the epitome of polished.
At 46, Obama carries a political persona that draws on many origins. He is the son of a single mother who grew up middle class in Hawaii and worked as a community organizer in the poorest neighborhoods of Chicago. But he is also the Harvard Law Review president who knows well - occasionally too well - that he is smart and successful.
Part of the appeal to many Democrats is an intellect that allows him to discuss difficult issues with sophistication and candor, as he did in Philadelphia with his speech on race. But his remarks at a private San Francisco fundraiser amplified the flip side of his personal manner, a sort of freestyle rhetorical approach sometimes better suited for a dorm room bull session.
Obama fielded almost identical questions from the donors in San Francisco as he does from voters across the country. Yet his answers in the more intimate - and in his view, off the record - gathering were a bit more revealing.
Asked what he would seek in a running mate, Obama said despite the conventional wisdom, he wouldn’t need somebody with military expertise because "foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Sen. Clinton or Sen. McCain."
And then there was the question from donors who asked what they could expect in Pennsylvania when they traveled there to campaign for him. They had to work to do, Obama responded, because voters in a lot of the communities feel beaten down by job losses and betrayed by their government.
“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,” Obama said.
The remarks, recorded at the Sunday fundraiser by a Huffington Post blogger and published Friday, opened a fresh round of scrutiny about Obama’s ability to connect with blue-collar workers.
"What I found to be most revealing was that these remarks were made several thousand miles from us, at a very expensive fundraising campaign event in a very upscale location where he did not think any of us were going to hear what he would say," said Harrisburg Mayor Stephen R. Reed, a Clinton supporter. "It invites the question of what else does this candidate think about all the different people who make up our redder, diverse nation."
David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, pointed to the senator’s expressions of regret for the way he phrased his remarks.
"Did he choose his words poorly? Yes," Axelrod said. "Does it reflect something larger? Absolutely not. Those who are trying to portray it that way are disingenuous."
Indeed, he has won liberal states and conservative states, wealthy states and poor states. And he has been masterful at attracting millions of new voters and donors to the Democratic Party, and building fierce loyalty within his campaign operation and among his legions of supporters with a message of bridging racial, religious and cultural divides.
But for all of the pitch-perfect performances over the past 15 months, Obama can come across as detached at moments when he should identify, as scolding when he should allow incidents to roll off his back, as misunderstood when he says one thing but means another.
At a New Hampshire roundtable in December, Obama betrayed little emotion as one participant sobbd while describing her situation: She lost her job on her 65th birthday, struggles to afford her $2,900 monthly prescription drug costs, and lives in 30-year-old trailer where the thermostat is set at 64 degrees.
At the same event, he later mentioned how the success of his book had allowed him to buy a big house. He was making a point about inequities in the tax system, but the story felt misplaced in the midst of such dire tales.
Just before the Iowa caucus, Obama began telling voters about a phone conversation with his wife, who said this year was the right time to run for president because they are “still almost normal.” She meant that before her husband became a U.S. senator and received a $1.9 million book advance, they juggled school loans, grocery shopping and mortgage payments like other middle-class families.
“Michelle’s point was, in eight years from now, 10 years from now, we may still be nice people, but we may be in this orbit where we just don’t remember, we don’t hear people’s voices anymore,” Obama explained at the time.
Two women in the Sioux City audience were not impressed.
“That was a mistake,” said Lindsay Pelchat, 30. “That was a big mistake.”
“Don’t ever forget where you come from,” her friend, Paula Yasat, 53, piped in.
“Does that mean in the next election he’s already going to start losing sight of the middle class?” Pelchat asked.
The women approached Obama afterward to tell him they remained undecided.
“What do I need to do?” Obama asked, almost disbelieving. “You’re really making us work.”
At a February town hall meeting in Racine, Wis., Obama showed little patience for a rowdy crowd. When one young man asked for his views on Native American rights and “people getting screwed” by NAFTA, Obama took a sharp tone.
“I’m sorry, young man, you have a series of different questions and why don’t you ask your questions in a more polite fashion,” Obama said.
An aide later said that Obama, who was on his last stop before a trip home to Chicago, appeared irritated because was anxious to see his family.
Reacting in mid-February to Clinton’s charges that he was all talk, Obama offered a confident self-assessment, one that might sound arrogant to some. “It’s true I give a good speech. What can I do? Nothing wrong with that.”
Obama infuriated supporters of former Sen. John Edwards by continuing to use him as a punch line on the stump even after he left the race. And New York magazine reported last month that Obama blew the endorsement, in part, because he came across as “glib and aloof” during a phone conversation on the day that Edwards dropped out.
Cass R. Sunstein, a former colleague of Obama’s at the University of Chicago law school, said the characterizations by Obama opponents of him as elitist is “laughable,” and the charge of him as condescending “aren’t features of his personality.”
But he allowed that Obama, like anybody under a nearly 24-hour-a-day microscope, can slip up.
“He is a real person,” Sunstein said. “He is not programmed in the way that some political candidates have been in the past. The moment-by-moment scrutiny is surely less familiar for him than it has been for people who have been facing this kind of scrutiny for a longer time.”
By Carrie Budoff Brown
Copyright 2008 POLITICO
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See all 111 Comments[ ] Obama
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[ ] We''''re in deep do do.
Posted by dgwooster at 02:48 AM : Apr 16, 2008
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[x] We''''re in deep do do.
Sorry people but Obama is wrong and I do not like all these talking heads and media hounds spinning Obama''s words as not being offensive but instead we are to take as right and true. I also am really tired of them telling me how I feel! Who I am is one of the "THEY" Obama was sharing to his "WE" buddies about. What they all have wrong is that I am not bitter towards my country or my government for that matter any other race of people or any other country or any other neighbors! Not city folk, Not Hispanic folk, Not black folk! They are all welcome to my small town and my church where you will get and invite for dinner! We do have people in hard times around here and other who are not and we help each other through such times. We do want more jobs but not anymore or less then any other part of this country. We count ourselves so very lucky to be able to live in a small town with a solid sense of community and core values of hard work, where sharing, caring and God loving abound! Where we have the freedom to work and play. Where we can hunt and fish and live as we please. We are not bitter we are BLESSED!
You might be a redneck if you are from a small town.
You might be a redneck if you don%u2019t wanna work.
You might be a redneck if you buy my talking points hook line and sinker.
You might be a redneck if you are bitter and anti American government.
You might be a redneck if you cling to your gun only because you are full of frustration.
You might be a redneck if you cling to your religion only because you are full of frustration
You might be a redneck if you have antipathy to everyone but other rednecks.
You might be a redneck if you hate all immigrants coming to your country.
You might be a redneck if you don%u2019t know anything about international trade.
You might be a redneck if you won%u2019t vote for me or join my movement, sort of a race thing.
Obama got caught gossiping in private, plain and simple!
[ ] Obama
[ ] Hillary
[ ] McCain
[ ] We''re in deep do do.
More evidence of Obama ties to radicalism
Some people in Pennsylvania have guns because they hunt or maybe they just like to shoot things. Others don''t.
Some people in Pennsylvania do cling to religion because it''s an important part of their spirtual lives. Others don''t.
Some people in Pennsylvania do have anti-trade or anti-immigration positions because they or someone they know has lost a job or perhaps their reasons or because of their economic theories. Others don''t.
Some people in Pennsylvania do feel antipathy towards people who aren''t like them because they lack maturity. Others don''t.
Also, some people in the United States feel one or more of these things even though they don''t live in Pennsylvania. Others don''t.
Before this, I saw Obama as much more palatable to Clinton. This sort of elitism doesn''t suit a president of all the people in the United States. This is not a "distraction" -- it''s a glimpse into how he really thinks about 80% of the people in the US -- that their political views are based on selfish, visceral reactions to their environment.
This is no different than another candidate making a broad generalization that blacks in city neighborhoods all think/act the same for common reasons. If a candidate were to make that sort of generalization, he would suddenly become radioactive and it would be the end of his bid for anything above school board.
It is indicative of an elitist mentality -- implying that when other people say something like this, they''re antipathetic, but when he says it, it''s an astute observation.
Bill Clinton 1991
Isn''t this what Obama was saying???
The Clintons are such BS. If Obama loses to Hillary for the nomination I might vote for (God Forgive me) McCain just to spite that nasty Bit*H
"Sniper Fire" Hillary is so full of SH*T.
Barack Obama isn''t even his REAL name...It is Barry Sotero,
he chose Hussein as his own middle name too !
Look who his backers and advisers are, you will be horrified !!
Government''s permission to accept $1 billion from Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of
Libya. The gift, Mr. Farrakhan said, would be used to mobilize American black
voters and bolster their economic strength. (and elect Obama ?)
trip "just sound bites" Rev. Wright went on...
This was the trip Obama''s "just sound bites" Rev. Wright went on with Farrahkan...
While visiting that mercurial miscreant Libyan strongman Col. Muammar Qaddafi,
Farrakhan struck a deal which secured millions of dollars from Libya to lobby
for the secession of part of the United States. The goal is the formation of a
separate black nation on the North American Continent replete with a 500,000 man
army and nuclear weapons.
"Minister" Farrakhan endorsed the policies of the Sudan which enslaves black
Christian men, women and children. The average price of a Christian woman with
child is $15.00. For Farrakhan and the people of the Sudan there is no such
thing as an "emancipation proclamation."
In remarks to the Iranian parliament Farrakhan called for the destruction of
that "great satan" meaning the United States.
In Iraq, Farrakhan accused the United States of genocide and "war crimes" and
again prayed for our total destruction.
He be learned at Harvard & knows more than simple common folk!
Just looks at how many he''s already convinced to vote for him!
He show is smart!
Gawd Dern America!
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