Clinton Pollster: Obama Comments "Fair Game" For Attack Ads

Hillary chief strategist Geoffrey Garin dramatically raised the stakes in the battle over Barack Obama's comments about small-town America, saying in an interview that they would be "damaging" to him in a general election, could set back the Democratic Party's efforts to reach heartland voters, and should be something that super-delegates consider when deciding whom to support.

"These are the kinds of attitudes that have created a gulf between Democrats and lots of small-town and heartland voters that we've been working very, very hard to bridge," Garin told me today in his first public comments about the flap.

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Comments

[Lauren1959]

Hey Clinton I hear McCain is looking for a good woman to be his running mate. I'm sure that you are appropriately experienced, consistent with him on issues like the war and guns and s sound just like him these days he is waiting for your phone call! Please, just get out of this race before you drive the Democratic party into the ground. How dare you undermine Gore, Kerry and now Obama as "good men" who were out of touch...

[vippy]

I am bitter! I so ticked off at the ruling class who gets away with all their corruptness without
punishment. Just look at Ken Lay and his "convenient" death, yeah right. Food is being poisoned,
illnesses from it entice Big Pharma, maintenance of planes is outsourced and we know what
happened. What a pig sty of a country we have become. Now the pope is coming and Bush makes
a big deal of it and yet Buchanan claims by fall we will attack Iran. Nice going!!! Yes, we are bitter.
Now let us send off Hillary and her slumloard of a grandmother she admired to much.

[foreverleft]

Clearly, Obama's post "bitter" performance will contribute to a price being paid in Pennsylvania.

On CNN this evening, he was unconvincing as he deliberately avoided any reference to guns; as was mentioned when he spoke to some of the countries most wealthy.

I was hoping that for a change, guns wouldn't play a contentious role in a national election.

Way to go oh enlightened one.

The sarcasm he displayed at a follow up gathering would be likened more to a standup routine than the non-apologies he has uttered so far.

Did this guy hire Penn or what?

Suddenly, Obama's ambition, as opposed to his calling to save this nation from itself, is rearing it's ugly head.

Flawed versus fraud is starting to sound pretty good.

[tryharder2think]

Foreverleft out...

Please come in out of the rain. Try harder 2 think.

Your lies won't win.

The truth will set you free and you might actually love yourself again.

try harder 2 think

[foreverleft]

And the wisdom so flows.

[hubbstan]

Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol has made this statement:

I have been in meetings with the Clintons and their advisors where very clinical things were said in a very-detached tone about unwillingness of working class voters to trust government " and Bill Clinton " and about their unfortunate (from a Clinton perspective) proclivity to vote on life-style rather than economic issues. To see Hillary going absolutely over the top to smash Obama for making clearly more humanly sympathetic observations in this vein, is just amazing.

[vippy]

Believe that Obama is the lesser evil of the three, ergo the best man to vote for. Clinton has had
her chance while in the senate and always voted on the side of the GOP and now she talks
the very opposite, like we are stupid and can't remember. Obama is not yet as corrupt. Too bad
we let the good candidates with a real change go already but then voters always have shot themselves in the foot.

[Grannysue]

Yes that Clinton Pollster said this will kill his campaign, and if people understood what he was saying that Americans are bitter, sick and tired of the trade agreements, the jobs sent overseas, Katrina, Iraq, 9 trillion dollar deficite, trashing of our Constitution, Politicians giving the Middle class and poor lip service, well then were going to make dam sure that we make them think it's OBAMA'S fault, because that's all we got and were losing!

[fourex]

Obama has hit a raw nerve with his populist comments, not with PA voters but with the corporate candidates, Hillary and McCain. When Obama asked PA voters to vote first for their economic interests, the corporate world sucked air. Flags were raised, warnings were sounded, the usual suspects turned up on the airways. How dare middle class voters put themselves first. As Greider, Phillips and Frank have written the middle class has voted against it's own economic interest for the last 25 years. This is the basis of corporate rule. How dare Obama try to change the equation.

[rosal]

Yes Obama, I am bitter. I cannot find a job, and I pay a ton of money for health insurance. I am bitter because I see people with millions in the bank from promoting trade and from exchanging favors for money.
You can count me in: I am bitter.

[maggiemae656]

It's bad enough that we have become bitter, now politicians want to tell us what emotions we're "allowed" to have and not have? I'm bitter to the core, and not because Obama says so...and I can't change that because Hillary thinks it's a low-class emotion that shouldn't be publicized.

[Trueheart]

"The answer to `What's the matter with Kansas' is not that there's something the matter with Kansas," Garin argued. "There's something the matter with Democrats who can't make a connection with voters whose economic interests are closely tied to what the Democratic Party stands for."

I thought this was the most interesting point made by Garin. Small-town Americans saw themselves as Ronald Reagan's Moral Majority, and they've been betrayed. But the question of why they don't identify with the Democrats is a huge one. Mrs. Clinton hasn't been able to impress them, nor has Mr. Obama. Will they go with McCain?

[moonwatcher]

I'm bitter. I just looked into my morning paper and found eighteen young men who died in Iraq this last week. Fine young men who will never walk the face of the earth because Bush sent us into Iraq. Don't give me Cheney's comment that they signed up for this. They didn't think they would die and would be living in Iraqi for more than 12 months. I'm bitter because McCain and Bush wants us to stay so we can see some more deaths. I'm bitter because I see voters who are more concerned about gay marriage, protecting the unborn child than protecting and educating the people who are already here.
They say they support the troops and then vote for people who vote down policies that would help the troops. I'm bitter because a candidate says she understands ordinary working people but than voted for a bankruptcy bill because she understands what happens to people who loose their job and have no other resources. So folks don't show me patriotic signs or how you understand ordinary working people, show me how you are going to get us out of this Iraqi mess and what you are going to do to help ordinary people who have lost their jobs find other good jobs that can support their families.

[Linda54]

If showing empathy and concern for the plight of Americans in small towns provoke so much anger and resentment then maybe they should be left to live life comforted by their guns and relgion. At least Obama brought to the world's attention the situation that exist in small town rural America. If they are angry because someone was honest enough to bring serious attention to what is happening to our fellow Americans who have been left to struggle for themselves and their families while their jobs are being outsourced overseas then so be it. How dare they get made at Obama when Hillary is making back door deals while smiling in their faces and McCain just out and out tells them forget it those jobs are not coming back... At least Obama is honest enough to show concern and is the only one running for President who has the compassion and humble beginning background to understand and want to do something about it.

did not use a word that according to the media and his opponents cares it just demonstrates how void they are

[Trueheart]

Obama was referring to what Democratic Party insiders call "the NASCAR vote." How condescending is that? I live in the kind of area that he was talking about. Guns are used for hunting and keeping predators away from livestock. Churches provide spiritual, emotional and material support. Outsiders who put up gated communities and build fences bring with them an economy which supplies service jobs at minimum wages. People are frustrated and disillusioned--not bitter. No matter how fast they run, they end up in last place.

The Democrats have ignored this population for years and instead, have focussed on suburban/urban areas. Obama forgot to reserve this kind of talk for after dinner conversation with limousine liberal supporters. Words matter.

[Pjsandiego]

Trueheat, you need to go listen to the full conversation- not just Obama's answer which is really being taken out of context. Obama is not in any fashion suggesting that the issues of guns, church and immigation are not legitimate and never does he say that there is anything wrong with small town America. He was responding to a California who was going to go to Pennsylvania and was being asked how to raise political issues that resonant with the Obama campaign. All- and I must stress All that Obama said was that because small town America has been so totally cheated by the last two adminstration, the issues that are important to them are guns, religion and immigration as opposed to issues of economics which don't work for campaigning because of the basic cynicism that Obama sees.

Obama was not even talking about what you call "the NASCAR vote"- which has nothing to do wtih small towns-. He was talking about communities devastated by the Clinton/Bush NAFTA form of economics.

Contrary to what you apparently believe the party that really has most ignored small town America is the Republican party. Look around and see what has George Bush done for you lately.

Obama is proposing a new coalition and a rejection of economic models that glorify the Corporation and move our economy and jobs overseas.

[Trueheart]

I did read his original comments, and his "make good" comments. Didn't change my mind about how removed he is from the people whose dilemma he is talking about.

The Republican party most certainly has not done right by these people, who believed that they were the "moral majority" or "average Americans." These are the people Michael Moore talks about when he says (to paraphrase) that despite the fact that their government has ignored their economic downslide and the unravelling of their social fabric, they continue to believe in the United States, and continue to believe that their sons and daughters fight and die in Iraq in order to preserve freedom.

The credit for the tragic state of current affairs must be given to Reagan, Bush One, Clinton and Bush Two.

[VivaZapata]

Obama can ill afford to backtrack, play defense or whatever the hell else they're pissing out of the sound bite engine these days. He needs to be careful about what he says, but once he says it, he has to hang tough. Most people are too concerned about "where's the money" to get caught up in this stupid god and duck hunting insult crap.

[slow2]

VivaZapata, amen to that. Apologies are simply a way to suck up to people who don't need it, and oh btw will cut your throat if you do. Don't explain, don't apologize for comments made that are in no way insulting -- surely the Obama campaign needs no affirmation from the Clinton school of drama and manipulation. God knows the rest of us don't.

[Pjsandiego]

You are 110% right. I think he should have told them all to stuff it, grow up and listen to the real quote -which includes the question. He didn't say anything wrong or arrogant and this entire controversy is ridiculous.

[BardEric]

Then why did he apologize by saying he should have chosen better words if he didnt say anything wrong?

[robXdion]

Some words you just don't use in politics. 'Bitter', 'Cling' and 'Ignorant' are just a few of the words you don't want to use when you are describing constituents you want to vote for you, in ANY context. And you sure as hell don't do it in California to describe someone in the Midwest. Truthful or not, Obama needs to put his brain in gear when he's feeling the crowd. We should be still hammering the Clintons over their Columbia and China ties, not harping on a Kerry-esque poor choice of words. Just dumb. He better flip this into a positive like he did Friday night, because most Americans aren't smart or honest with themselves enough to admit he's right. But being right doesn't matter. Knowing how to handle people with care does.

[VivaZapata]

good points all.

[Trueheart]

The first visual image I had when I read a few stories on this was Obama, sitting around with John Kerry's crowd, sipping on cognac and smoking cigars while they discuss the "plight" of rural and working class America. It will be interesting to see if he can haul this back in, but as you say, "But being right doesn't matter. Knowing how to handle people with care does."

[disgusted48]

At least they're discussing it. That's a start.

[Barbarossa03]

You need to work with ignorant people, but you can't tell ignorant people that they are ignorant.

[JavaCityGal]

Obama never called anyone "ignorant".

[rrafiringa]

If people actually blow Obama over this, I don't think the US deserve him.

[Pjsandiego]

Those were my exact thoughts. What is wrong with this country? Are we all so sensitive that if anyone says anything that is not exactly perfectly in line with whatever is consider "right", then suddenly we need to viscerally react like someone has committed some enormous sin. Sad sad sad.

[JavaCityGal]

Obama is held to a different standard than McCain or Hillary. One imperfect word from Obama, and it's a big bruha. Meanwhile, McCain can get confused by Sunni and Shiities and Hillary can lie about Bosnia sniper fire and everything else. That will only make Obama even better and more prepared to defeat McCain in November.

[WebDeb]

She's corrupt. http://youtube.com/watch?v=AMfUajhL24I&feature=related