This week, Obama made the following comment:
"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. 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."
Clinton seized the chance to criticize him for patronizing the rural areas of America, focusing especially on the word "bitter". Now people think it's going to cost Obama working class voters just because he had a poor choice of words.
Do you think it's a good strategy for Clinton to attack Obama for making some offhand comments? After all, everyone makes mistakes, but as we've seen, people in the political world don't seem to care. And ultimately, will Obama's comment really make him lose voters?
3 comments:
It doesn't seem like a good idea to criticize every little mistake, after all, it will probably come back at you later. It kinda makes Clinton seem desperate to comment on something little, like word choice, and if Obama wants to, he could retaliate by going over each one of her insignificant quotes as well. It's when the mistakes become common that they should be criticized, not for one little thing.
I'd say Clinton's criticism here is probably the politically correct (get it?) thing to do. Little slip ups like this can lead to lost voters, especially if the opponent makes it a big deal.
Clinton's criticism of Obama's word choice is valid because in politics you need to be very aggressive to get ahead. Obama's comments probably did offend some voters who are fustrated with the administration, but you can't please everyone and ultimately I think Obama's little slip will not cost him many votes. In fact, his understanding of their bitterness and claim that he will bring change may attract more votes.
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