If that video shows up in an ad.  Or gets emailed around to a broad audience, it could be devastating.

His argument was that people were voting for HRC over him because they are bitter and clinging to God, guns, xenophobia and racism.

This may be the turning point and I suggest all Talk Left Hillary supporters keep drumming the word "elitist" and quoting Obama's arrogant contempt for 'small town America".

Why does Obama hate decent gun-owning, small town, Church-attending, people so much?

Is it because the good jobs have fled and he just doesn't like poor people?

Anyway, this issue is a win-win for Hillary and she may get the NRA endorsement.

Her list of people who love their guns, collectors, hunters, and target shooting enthusiasts is so complete, one wonders why sometimes Police Chiefs favor restrictions on guns and gun shows.

But maybe the key is: Small town residents should have NO restrictions. And cities should have some, but just those who do not say they want to target practice or hunt or shoot for pleasure.

I am not surprised that Talk Left is so enthusiastically anti-Obama's and his eltism. Especially when Hillary ties the issue so closely to our great and abiding love of guns, which has brought so much pure good to America.

I am pro small town, and cannot understand how anyone who was once a factory based economy well-paid worker could be described as frustrated over 25 years of low wage jobs.

Let's remember what he actually told that audience of privileged supporters -- not simply that Americans experiencing hard times "cling" to religion, guns, and protectionist economic policy, but, of much more consequence in the long run, that such hard times have turned them into "bitter" bigots and xenophobes -- who distrust "people who don't look like" and are typically anti-immigrant.

But is that the truth? Or simply a lefty truism? What is the reality? Has the last 40 years of economic transformation -- that has caused great suffering in many parts of the country -- really led to more bigotry and greater intolerance?

The evidence seems to indicated the opposite. In fact, there are plenty of reasons to believe that the country has become MORE tolerant, not less so.

Furthermore -- and this is VERY important -- working class people know something that more affluent Americans, because they live lives increasingly isolated from the rest of us, often don't realize; that working class people today most often live and work in MUCH MORE diverse, in terms of race and ethnicity, environments than more affluent, privileged Americans -- including the denizens of high tech enclaves on the West Coast who were undoubtedly among some of those Sen. Obama was pandering to with his remarks.

To put it more succinctly; if you are a member of a craft trade union, work on the line in manufacturing, on the docks, in construction (union or non-union), retail, food service, transportation, hospitality, etc., etc., you are MUCH more likely to have co-workers, acquaintances and friends who are African Americans and/or members of other minority groups than if you are hanging out on the Microsoft campus, in a law firm or ad agency, in publishing, in the financial services industry, or on the business side of the communications and entertainment industry.

But as a native Midwesterner now living in NYC, it doesn't surprise me in the least.  I know how an awful lot of coastal liberals feel about the heartland and small-town America.

I really thought Anglachel had the definitive take on this whole controversy:

Obama's statements today are paradigmatic of the wine-track attitude and are particularly shocking coming on the heels of his own plea that the nation not judge him harshly for his associations and pastimes, that he be allowed a complex identity that could encompass both his grandmother and his pastor. Fair enough, and an argument that elicits a certain sympathy from me on his personal behalf, though it fell far short of explaining why we should not question his political judgment based on the company he keeps. What he requires we do for him he refuses to do for others, preferring to dismiss an entire class of people in a high-handed manner. Graciously excusing them from racism and then turning around and denigrating their lives in an even more fundamental way is not going to win over a lot of hearts and minds, Barry...

They have guns because they like shooting stuff. They hold to their religion because it provides them with something they value. I may be a secular humanist myself, but as the child of a very devout father, this dismissal of faith went down sideways with me. (It also makes me want to ask, so what the f*** keeps your skinny ass in the pew of your church, given how you characterize the faith of those who do not support you?) Their identities are every bit as complex as Obama's, and as grounded in the dense fabric of their lives as what he claims for himself. It is not epiphenomenal, something to be shed when the scales fall from their eyes and they understand their role in his march to greatness.

If you go to some rural areas, where "crime" (other than spousal assault, public drunkeness, and the like) is a rarity, you will find deeply fearful people, scared out of their wits that some person (in their minds, usually one with skin darker than theirs) who is going to kick in their door in the middle of the night, take all their stuff and leave them for dead.  They'll be sleeping with a gun under their pillow, stickers on the door "Protected by Smith & Wesson" or the like, and so on.  This is taking place in areas where they roll up what sidewalks they have before 8 PM, where the loudest noise at night is either a startled dog or a train whistle, and where the kids can leave all their toys in the front yard so long that they get overgrown in weeds.  These same folks will believe that one, to live in the city, would have to be in a constant state of fear, cowering behind multiple locks and barred doors, never venturing out for longer than it takes to buy food and return.

I live in a large city.  This morning I walked the dog at 4:30 am.  I had the sidewalks to myself.  I actually have to worry far more about crossing the street around people who think stop signs are optional. I often forget to lock my front door - I haven't been broken into in well over 15 years - and that was before gentrification set in.  

The fact is, people in rural - and not so rural - communities have been sold a bill of goods by the national media, all of which was designed to put them into a quivering state of fear where the daddy state would protect them from harm in exchange for a few of their liberties.  It was "disease of the week" movies in the 70s, urban nightmare stories in the 70s and 80s, crazed crackheads and meth addicts in the 80s, rappers, darker people, immigrants and then terrorists.

All the while, the Republicans were decrying the protections the law gave ordinary people and in the next breath demanding more power for law enforcement. Driven sheeplike into quivering fear, the average person was more than willing to buy into the program.  The program was Rove-like before there was Rove - the Republicans attacked the strengths of communities by claiming those strengths were weaknesses, and their weaknesses strengths.  Intolerance and racism became "good ideas", because it was always someone who didn't look, think, act or worship like you who might do you wrong.  Seeking common ground and understanding became bad things, because the terrorists hated us for our freedoms and would use them to kill us.  Reliance on law and the legal process became a bad thing, because the Constitution only protected the guilty from "justice", "justice" of course, being synonymous with Dirty Harry wasting some DFH with his .44 mag.  Violence as a first resort became a good thing, because that way you could make sure The Other didn't get you.

This insular, closed-minded small town mindset is exacerbated in places like rural Pennsylvania (though it's not exclusive to there), where (as I've said before) the demographic is such that it is entirely possible the only A-A persons kids might see through graduating high school are being chased, tackled and cuffed, on "Cops".

And, when someone tells them they've been sold a bill of goods, how would you expect them to react?

How would you react?