did say it -- its a fact.  People in small towns (and I live in one) who have seen manufacturing dry up, Big Agra sweep up farms, big box stores destroy their downtowns -- are bitter about that.  Often, rather than facing down the why of the matter or gathering forces to change a situation, folks focus on what is a comfort to them -- guns, religion and blaming the brown guy.

It is tough to say something unpleasant, even insulting -- but when it is true, it is what I'd rather hear than Pennsylvanians are all as happy as idealized Amish.  That's the lie.

Because some people will be too quick to concede that he "shouldn't have said that."  

People cling to divisive issues to their own detriment, and to the detriment of our political process.  This is, as much as anything else, the message of his campaign.  

I sort of find a splash of truth refreshing.

Yes, that's the first reaction.  Soon, the Obama campaign will get their talking points distributed and a more sophisicated reaction will show up in media and elsewhere.  

Compare his statement to John Edwards:

And we do this -- we do this for each other in America. We don't turn away from a neighbor in their time of need. Because every one of us knows that what -- but for the grace of God, there goes us. The American people have never stopped doing this, even when their government walked away, and walked away it has from hardworking people, and, yes, from the poor, those who live in poverty in this country.

For decades, we stopped focusing on those struggles. They didn't register in political polls, they didn't get us votes and so we stopped talking about it. I don't know how it started. I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat.

It's a matter of respect in your gut.  John Edwards grew up working class.  Those are his people.  

Obama needs to work on his tone deafness to working class folks or he will lose to McCain.  

but as usual the media is misrepresenting what he said and is saying. I don't know how this will play out, but what he said is right. No one is bothering to quote him correctly, so what else is new. They are so busy manufacturing news, yet again they simply can not report the real news that is out there and there is plenty of news out there to report.

It's this part:

"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 also said.

Clinton probably still listens to Penn, so she only gets the critique in half way.

McCain's spokesmen went right for the jugular.

It does not matter if it IS condescending.  It will be portrayed as such.  McCain's folks jumped all over it.

They have the narrative of effete and elite liberal. They will spin it.

It's not the end of the world, but I wish he had not said it.