Things can only get bitter
Updated on 13 April 2008
Have Barack Obama's remarks about "bitter" Americans who "cling to guns or religion" done him lasting damage?, asks Felicity Spector.
He was never exactly a boy from the 'hood', but Barack Obama has been hauled over the coals for patronising ordinary Americans after a comment in a San Francisco speech was picked up by the Huffington Post and quickly flashed around the world.
Here's what he said, referring to people living in areas hard hit by job cuts: "It's not surprising, then, that 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."
It was perhaps a somewhat academic point; that people angered by unemployment and poverty turn to the familiar, or the old fashioned, or the comforting, like guns and religion. But stemming more from Obama's Harvard law background than his days as a grassroots organiser in Chicago, it fits right into that stereotype of an ivory tower, liberal elitist, far removed from the people whose votes he actively seeks.
Just look what happened to John Kerry, just because he holidayed in France. And tamper with issues of religion at your peril.
In the last 48 hours the fuss it's provoked must be the very last thing Obama needs just nine days before the crucial primary fight in Pennsylvania, that most blue collar of states. Hillary Clinton's people wasted no time in maximising their advantage, hammering home the message that the remarks showed how Obama was completely out of touch with the people.
Calling the comments "demeaning", she said: "They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans, certainly not the Americans I know..." And referring to her own church-going background, she packed the killer punch, "People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich".
She even recruited Iowa governor Tom Vilsack to declare that it all "undercut his message of hope".
So all of a sudden, one tiny remark has set off ever growing waves which are seriously rocking the Obama campaign. It could well set him right back in Pennsylvania, where he was starting to catch up with Clinton. It could even affect the support of the super delegates, especially after John McCain started making his own political capital out of the row.
Representatives from marginal districts, where the votes of the "Reagan Democrats" are very much up for grabs, must be especially concerned.
Some pundits have even gone so far as to call it a "potential turning point" for Obama. The New York Times quotes one Democratic strategist as saying, 'It could mean he's rendered himself unelectable. This is a perfect example of why Democrats lose elections."
So the hasty damage limitation efforts begin. Obama has apologised, admitting "I didn't say it as well as I could" and insisting all he'd meant was that people whose lives were blighted by economic hardship were quite rightly frustrated about it.
It's too soon to tell if lasting damage has already been done, but it's certainly thrown a lifeline to Senator Clinton at a moment when she needed it most and could also have provided John McCain with an opportunity to frame the November campaign, should Obama become the nominee.
It's also giving some of the super delegates cold feet, those who'd harboured niggling doubts about whether Obama had been "tested" enough; whether he could stand up to the rigours of this toughest of campaigns.
Things, as they say, can only get bitter.
