Obama's Explanation

Amanda Carpenter | April 12, 2008 7:12 AM

So, who knew Obama's rhetorical prowess extended to destroying three key general election demographics in just one line?

Carol and Hugh went through those offending remarks below. Now Obama's trying to walk back those comments. It's pretty much the same argument, that people voted on seemingly primitive issues like faith, guns and marriage when they can't pay the bills. He's just saying he wasn't trying to be elitist/condescending/arrogant when he said it.

Here he goes:

And so 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. So I made this statement-- so, here’s what rich. Senator Clinton says ‘No, I don’t think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack’s being condescending.’ John McCain says, ‘Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he’s obviously out of touch with people.’
“Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain—it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch? Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I’m out of touch? No, I’m in touch. I know exactly what’s going on. I know what’s going on in Pennsylvania. I know what’s going on in Indiana. I know what’s going on in Illinois. People are fed-up. They’re angry and they’re frustrated and they’re bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America."

Anybody else think that response sounded a little cocky?

Last night on Hannty & Colmes I made the point I didn't think Obama deserved to explain his first round of remarks any more clearly. To me, his theory that people resort to the guns/marriage/faith/border security paradigm based on poor economic circumstances seems pretty carefully thought out. It's just a very bad, damaging theory.

I'll be on MSNBC to talk about McCain around 8:30 am if you want to tune in.