To me, the potential outrage over Obama's comments is that they appear to be elitist. In response to a question having something to do with getting support in rural communities, he answered with his personal opinion about why these communities are frustrated with government. In an effort to convey his opinion he probably could have chosen better words. Whether or not his premiss is correct could become less of an issue than his stereotypical statements. In my humble opinion, he is boiling down the motivations of voting for a large, yet diverse group, to issues he seems to dismiss as not being that important. It is a little presumptive to charactarize these voters as acting out of frustration rather than acting in their own self interests.
If I haven't pissed you off too much, hang with me a little bit longer...
Many diaries have been written and many comments have been commented all speculating on whether or not this will hurt Obama and how the people in question will take these comments. I don't anticipate my opinions will be well recieved. I haven't seen many comments out there from folks who have identified themselves as being part of this group that Obama is referring to. Rather than all of us speculating on how these people will take these comments, I would be curious to see what their thoughts actually are. Anybody out there?