Posted on 04/14/2008 7:47:53 AM PDT by SmithL
Presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign has been in full damage control mode since the senator's blunt remarks about the nature of small town Pennsylvania voters were secretly recorded by a Huffington Post blogger at a recent San Francisco fundraiser that was supposed to be off limits to the press.
Obama, asked last Sunday why it was so hard for him to reach blue-collar voters, said that many had been overlooked economically and that "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."
Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton pounced on the comment over the weekend, calling it "elitist and divisive."
An Obama campaign insider tells us the blogger, Mayhill Fowler, had tried to get into one of two Obama fundraising events in the Bay Area a couple of months back where former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley stood in as a proxy.
She was turned away, even though she had offered to pay, says our source.
"There's a very basic (fundraiser) rule - you don't let press in, and anyone with an interest in reporting shouldn't get in," said the source.
Just how the MP3-wielding Fowler managed to secure an invite to the $1,000 a head fundraiser at the San Francisco home of developer Alex Mehran wasn't immediately clear - but Obama campaign higher-ups were said to be livid, with fingers pointing at a local fundraising consultant for the slip-up.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Anyone catch the “Compassion Conference” on CNN (featuring HilLIARy) last night?
Pleh.
I suspect somebody with deep pockets and even deeper footprints bought her admission.
Somebody with cankles. Y'all know what aahm talkin' bout!
It is barely possible that these alienated voters despise any politician trying to resell the repackaged failed politics of the dead socialists/communist regimes from the past. Some of us just are not interested in worshipping some stupid lawyer politician marketing such idiotic and naive notions about “change” for the stuck on stupid.
“Obama campaign higher-ups were said to be livid,”
why so upset?, thought he just didnt phrase it correctly.
yeah. right.
One must assume then that they know they are going to say things they don't want us "ordinary folks" to hear.
A contributor to an on-line blog isn’t a journalist and would not have to present themselves as such.
If that were true, I’d use it get free access to PGA tournaments across the Midwest.
This is why the media should never be prohibited access to the candidates. It’ll keep them from talking from both sides of their collective mouths.
What? Our FReeper status won’t get us free passes to PGA tournaments?
Hee. Backstabbed by one of their own, I do love it so. Et tu, Ariana?
}:-)4
And how were those Code Pink types able to disrupt those hearings? Democrats got them into the hearings.
Obama is just sorry he got caught.
Oh please...they pretend that it was a “mistake” when the reality is that Obama has been the designated fall guy all along; he’s **supposed** to make Hillary seem “CENTRIST” by comparison.
Which is to say: the Obama campaign intentionally allowed the leak of his radical comments. It’s by design. He’s not playing to win for himself, but for Hillary or Gore or Kerry.
There are none more elitist and arrogant that those on the left that have no reason to be.
No, I try to keep my evening meals inside my stomach.
No, from the outside (I am not a USA citizen), he appears to be a very smart Manchurian candidate who will act on behalf of foreign interests, presumably arab/persian/indonesian.
Basically, a light black Jimmy Carter.
Paranoia is beginning to set in for democrat party. Pictures of reporters and bloggers will be put up at the door and they won’t be allowed in. They might start questioning and searching people before they let them in the events from now on too.
If Rev wright did not sink this guy i doubt this will (though i sincerely hope it does).
Obama has done what i did not think possible - he made me enthusiastic and eager to vote for McCain
No, it was TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT! Don't you people know anything?? LOL!
Did you see (or see the recap on F&F Sunday) of the Saturday Night Live skit featuring Code Pink?
Hillarious - “the floor is now given to code pink for a 30 second interruption”
[yelling/whining/screeching from code pink protestors]
“how much time do we have left?”
“5 seconds”
[more yelling/whining screeching]
It was perfect - the tone of the screech/whine of the protestors was absolutely perfect.
So in Obama's opinion, blue collar workers are ignorant, bitter, NRA card-holding, right-wing-religious-extremist bigots. Wow, what a way to win hearts and minds. He claims to be devoutly religious (though what he's devout TO is a little undefined) who is using a broad verbal brush to diss religious people. I'm truly impressed. The only way he could have stuck his foot further down his gullet would have been to name the specific religion he's putting down.
As an aside...
Meetings/intervies are usually on-the-record; on-background; off-the record; or use Chatham House rules. Such behavior, taping and reporting closed event as did this blogging reporter, are the types of things that sully the reputation of bloggers as untrained, unprincipled and an out of control medium not to be engaged or taken seriously.
Who loses then? The public.
A citizen with an iPod is a dangerous thing!
And you freepers that are hams, it may be fruitful to see if you can pick up a wireless mic or two*, or one of the transmitters for hearing-impaired people that is fed from the sound board.
*Frequently the sound engineer will turn the sound board channel off, leaving the wireless still cheerfully transmitting all the audio it hears.
He was made to be a political messiah. He turned out to be just a mess.
And the press consider themselves as an equal branch of power in ruling our nation. How dare him! B.O.is thwarting the power sharing arrangement! Facist! /;?)
It's OK to tell the truth as you see it. Just don't let anyone hear you or spill the truth to the great unwashed masses.
Signed "a Typical white person"
If the climactic cooling trend started last year continues through this summer, Al does not stand a snowball’s chance in his hallucination of the Arctic ice cap of winning in November.
That’s always been the Democratic Party and the MSM. If they don’t really have a candidate of core beliefs they’ll mold some idiot to what they believe the people want but once the siding is off everyone starts realizing that the termites had already destroyed the structure.
Don’t you wish you could take some posts back after they are posted?
LOL... this is a hysterial story, that makes it even more offensive.
OBama made this HONEST revelation of his thinking in a forum he thought was SECRET, VETTED, TIGHTLY CONTROLLED, SAFE FROM CRITICISM.
Empty Elitist suit... I can’t possibly despise any politician more than I despise him, and the ‘Toon really set the previous standard for me.
Oops! The non-believers were not supposed to hear the real Obama. Hey, Obama! Don't piss on our heads and then lie that it is just an April rainshower.
you don't let press in, and anyone with an interest in reporting shouldn't get in," said the source.
Well, ain't that sweet. So all "off the record" statements are not what a candidate stands for during this election. I'd rather believe what a candidate or anyone for that matter ways in private, than what they preach in public.
Well I hope it is Al Gore who gets the nod. At least the Bore would have to defend himself and his idiot theories on the stump...he can’t stand the light of day and would be as big a loser as BHO, IMO.
This was the topic on the KLBJ AM Morning show in Austin today. One female (obviously a black) called in and that was her point. "You is taking dis way out of contest" and added that hillary was allowed to "misspeak". I wanted to call in, but it was too close to the end of the show.
I wanted to call and say that his statements didn't bother me at all, but the reason I won't vote for BO or hill is that they are both liberals.
So John Q. Lathe Operator WINS if he continues believing Obama is a political messiah rather than learning he's really just another elitist snob? How so? How is taping proof that someone is not what he says he is unprincipled? You prefer being spoon fed propaganda? Show us evidence this story isn't being taken seriously.
Well said!
In others words the ugh "little people" should not be allowed in. Nor should they be able to hear what a candidate really has to say. Why in their pitiful little minds they might come to understand what the candidate really stands for, that is their complete and total enslavement. We can 't have that now? Can we?
Hmmmmmmm? It does sound just a tad elitist.
Not on this thread, no.
The Mother of all Ironies:
If BHO is indeed taken down by
Bitter-Gate, we’ll have the Huffington Post to thank!
By this reporter’s behavior John Q. the Lathe Operator loses because they , and more importantly, others who could and would report on events that could be on, for instance, backround (a term meaning quotable but without attribution often used) are exluded from all and any other events...forever. Access is their lifeblood.
BTW: If a reporter doesn’t have a highly tuned BS meter as part of their being and repeats only what is said by the principle without fact checking other statements or challenging those statements should transport themselves back to the 1960’s and report for Pravda.
Yep. At fundraisers you have to pass out the real red meat and that conflicts with the vegetarian public image.
Hello, this was something he said in his “private life,” just like Lewinsky was something Bubba did in his “private life.”
Right? Right?
I know reporters have been secretly recording unguarded and even classified conversations since at least the Bay of Pigs. Explain why ANYONE would need to fact check an opinion recorded straight from the horse’s mouth.
Such rules are appropriate when all participants are allies of some sort
The incident in question was more of the flavor of an intelligence operation.
When an undercover officer infiltrates a Mafia gathering, should he respect a request for Chatham House rules?
Dems are madder than hornets when someone leaks on them! LOLOLOL
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