Obama's comments about Pennsylvania

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

It's quite possible my view is being colored by my previous opinion of him.

Here's the chunk of the original quote applicable

I think that the bolded portions address his intent.
Now, the clarification he made later

The bold, again, I think addresses the main thrust of his point.

I do think that a lot of the criticism is because of his comment including religion. And I get the impression, though I may be wrong here, that the same people who take offense to it, think that Obama somehow isn't as Christian as they are either because he's liberal, because he's a member of the UCC, or because they think he's really a Muslim. So clearly he's mocking religious people because he isn't really one of them. All speculation I guess.

I think "clinging" was the problem in the context of religion. Would you want to have your faith described as "clinging to religion"?

Personally, the Rev. Wright thing did make me question the genuineness of his faith or the genuineness of his political persona because it was hard to reconcile a freely chosen decision to go to that church with a pretty radical minister and then sell yourself as a moderate unifier. His comments about Wright didn't sell me after the fact. And the idea that he would follow up with referring to others who voted on religious issues as "clinging to religion" isn't helping either.

And I guess it doesn't make sense if you aren't already a conservative, but a lot of us don't even consider it the government's responsibility to find us jobs. So being really bitter and disillusioned about it seems unlikely to us.

I think Obama is on to something that should be discussed within the Democratic party about how to attract socially conservative, blue collar voters, but doing it in a way that suggests that the beliefs that these people consider worth voting on are somehow only a reflection of economic bitterness probably isn't going to help the overall cause.

The accuracy of what he said can be debated, I suppose; the stupidity of saying it publicly during the election probably can't. He had absolutely nothing to gain at this time.