Word: clinging
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...have been less had Obama not been speaking in San Francisco, a regional headquarters for secular condescension, or at a private fund raiser, where the rich and powerful gather for shrimp and special access; or if Obama, a comfortably devout Christian, had not said that "bitter" small-town voters "cling" to their faith, along with their guns and their "antipathy to people who aren't like them." By any measure, it was a graceless move to characterize an entire demographic group--and vital voting bloc--as irrational and bigoted. And it came from a candidate who should know better than...
...first time, I realized he is an élitist.' MAYHILL FOWLER, blogger for OffTheBus.net who first reported on Barack Obama's comment at a San Francisco fund raiser that economic frustrations have made small-town Pennsylvania voters "bitter" and driven them to "cling to guns or religion...
...surprising that they get bitter," Obama told a group of wealthy Californian donors at a closed San Francisco fund raiser, referring to rural blue-collar workers who have been hard hit by outsourcing and declining wages. "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...
...years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "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...
...than apologize or "clarify" it, was sensible and refreshing," said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Though the first wave of criticism focused on Obama's use of the word "bitter," over the weekend critics concentrated more on Obama's use of the word "cling" and the negative connotation it gave to people's attachments to guns and God. "I think you're on dangerous ground when you morph that into suggesting that people's cultural values, whether its religion or hunting and fishing or concerns about trade, are premised solely upon those of kind...