Did 'bitter' quip hurt Obama?
PENNSYLVANIA | Polls show Hillary with only slim lead as some voters forgive remark
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — This is a small town of about 30,000 people. But the 2,800 fans who showed up at Lycoming College on Friday to cheer on Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama didn’t seem too bothered about his “small-town voters are bitter” comments overheard in San Francisco two weeks ago.
“Sen. Obama, I am a Christian. My husband is a Christian and a sportsman with guns. We are not bitter over your statement about Pennsylvanians. However, we are bitter about how your opponents are spinning your statement,” Kathy Haubert, 44, of Bloomsburg, population 12,000, told Obama.
(AP)
Here's the comment Obama was tape-recorded making about Pennsylvanians in economically depressed small towns: ÒThey 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.Ó
Theodore Wheeland, 21, a Penn State University senior from tiny Troy, Pa., population 1,200, said he was outraged when he first read that comment from Obama.
“It was deeply disturbing,” Wheeland said. “If you take it literally, it was bad stuff. I’m a Christian. I’ve got 39 guns in my house. My dad’s an avid hunter. I’m an avid hunter. I’d been volunteering for [Obama] for two months, and that was enough for me to drop out of the campaign.”
But then Wheeland read more stories that gave more of the context of Obama’s remarks. He read Obama’s responses. Then, he read Obama’s “call to renewal” from 2006, urging Democrats to embrace religion. Wheeland got back on board the campaign.
“His point was not one of deep condescension to rural voters,” Wheeland said.
Rather, Wheeland said, in speaking about why the polls showed him trailing Hillary Clinton in small-town Pennsylvania as he had in small-town Ohio, Obama “was trying to play pundit or political scientist to these wealthy San Francisco donors.”
How many small-town voters outraged by Obama’s poorly timed comments will do the research Wheeland did to rejoin Obama’s camp in time for Tuesday’s primary election?
The polls showed Clinton way ahead in Pennsylvania, then showed Obama closing the gap. Then he made the “bitter” statement. But the latest polls still show Clinton just four to five percentage points ahead. She would need a substantially bigger margin of victory to start catching up to Obama in delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer.
Howard and Harriet Schwartz, 83 and 80, respectively, are of the demographic that generally more strongly supports Clinton. But, despite the “bitter” comment, the couple from Lewisberg, Pa., population 5,600, say he excites them like no other candidate in a generation.
“He reminds me of Roosevelt and Kennedy — he gives me hope,” Harriet Schwartz said.
“It wasn’t his finest hour,” Howard Schwartz said of the “bitter” comment, but he forgave Obama.
Tuesday’s race might be decided in the population-heavy suburbs of Philadelphia, where Obama will concentrate his time today and where Clinton and her husband are also spending a lot of time.
