I realize that there's been no independent evaluation of Obama's San Francisco comments yet, but I think that people may be misreading them entirely. In fact, I think the first part is directed at angry liberals who blame guns and religion for their woes.
Let's look again...
You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And 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.
Not that the operative verb is explain. Obama lists things that people use to explain their frustrations, not express them. I believe that Obama is remarking upon bitter people on the left and the right. In fact, this may be something of a pro-gun, pro-religious statement, basically saying that certain embittered liberals cling to guns as a way to explain their frustrations, while some embittered conservatives cling to xenophobia, while just about everyone can irrationally blame various religions.
I believe this reading makes more sense for three reasons. First, it's more common to the kinds of things Obama has written in his books and has said in numerous speeches before. In fact, in The Audacity of Hope, Obama makes an eloquent case that liberals must understand how much hunters value their guns. Secondly, I find it hard to believe Obama would make such a tone-deaf statement as one embraced by the alternate interpretation. He's too wily a politician to hand his opponents a whole bandolier of ammo! And finally, it simply makes more grammatical and syntactic sense to read it this way. I am sure that hearing it spoken aloud, it would make more sense and be less open to ambiguity and interpretation.
I'd also like to add that so far, we only have one source for the quote itself -- Mayhill Fowler, an anti-Obama blogger. Reading her original HuffPo piece, its ambiguous whether or not she was even at the event, which was ostensibly an exclusive fundraiser.
Let's hope that Obama get sin front of this as soon as possible! In fact, if my interpretation is correct, I think this could actually help him in PA rather than harm him. Being from PA myself, I can tell you -- we do love our guns...!