Obama said some rural Americans are bitter. About all this job loss and jobs not coming back. Who wouldn't be?
He also said the guns and religion thing. I can see where that would get misinterpreted (although it would never have been mentioned in the media if McCain said it, but I digress). But what's amazing to me is that the "bitter" thing seems to have gotten just as much bad press as the guns and religion part.
I've lived in rural America. Hell I grew up in northern Iowa and also lived in downstate Land of Lincoln/Obama. Rural Americans are bitter and for good reason. Is it bad to say people are bitter? He specifically said some of them, not all, so it's not like he was misrepresenting anyone. And bitterness isn't a bad personality trait, it's an understandable response to being screwed over repeatedly, politically and economically, after believing in America and working hard your whole life. Hell, doesn't the need for Obama and everyone to sell "hope" just imply in itself that we currently have too much bitterness and too little of its opposite, hope? Is he therefore bad for promoting hope also?
But we all know this isn't about what Obama said. It's about taking down Obama. It's about the corporate media and their GOP allies weakening him for the fall, and about Hillar E. Clinton with a last ditch Acme GOP Talking Points Kit, scrambling to get the nomination.
Democrats are expected apparently to just shut up about rural America, not campaign there, leave it to the GOPers who supposedly share the ruralites supposedly obsessively social conservative values. Dems are never supposed to even mention rural America. I don't think we'd be allowed any opinion on it, regardless of how positive or true, by the pundit-GOP coaltion. And part of the media enforcement of this is to "get" any Democrat who says anything about rural America as an "elitist".
If Obama said the opposite of what he said, if he said some rural Americans are unbitter, cheerful, hopeful, and happy despite their economic fates, he would have been similarly called an elitist about that. The GOP-pundit coalition would have said he was looking down at them as simple naively happy people who didn't need the wealth he supposedly has as a politician and lawyer.
And if McCain or any GOPer said rural Americans are bitter about gay special rights, latte drinking rich liberals in urban America, gun laws or the threat thereof, secular urbanites who don't share their good values, the disintegration of the family, or whatever, he/she would have been hailed as so much more in touch with the real values of rural America- unlike those Democrats who want to focus on economic issues and the evil "tolerance" or other "bad" issues. Said GOPer would have been hailed as a man of the people regardless of his eight houses (McCain) or rich New England family (Bush) or whatever wealth or economic views he had.
It's not who uses what words or who is supposedly misrepresenting the coveted voters of rural America. It's about making sure GOPers always look culturally rural and genuine, and making sure liberals look elitist, condescending, and rich, despite the facts.
Obama grew up not rich at all, in Augusta, Kansas. Hillary grew up in the wealthy northern suburbs of the City Obama has worked hard in as an organizer in the poor south side neighborhoods. The Saint grew up in a comfortable military family, and hails from Phoenix, Arizona- the geographic epitome of successful sunbelt suburban boomtowns, and therefore the opposite of rural Ohio, PA, or IA. Obama is by definition the one in touch with rural America regardless of what words he or anyone else chooses, and the hack media knows it.
Conclusion: Repubs can say anything they want about rural America, Dems aren't allowed to address it at all because they are by definition going to get called elitist.