Memorable Quotes
“It’s not surprising then that they get bitter and they cling to guns or religion or antipathy towards people who aren’t like them…”
—Sen. Barack Obama, April 6, 2008
Members of the Senate are by definition elite, but members of the most exclusive club in America spend a great deal of their time trying not to appear that way. As then-senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton squared off in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary in April 2008, this dynamic was on full display. Beers were quaffed; bowling balls were hurled. It was while this was playing out onstage that the audiotape appeared: Obama behind closed doors at a San Francisco fundraiser, describing small-town Pennsylvanians who had suffered economically as becoming “bitter” and then “cling[ing] to guns or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them, ... as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Clinton pounced: “I don’t think it helps to divide our country into one America that is enlightened and one that is not.” She would go on to win the Pennsylvania primary by 10 points. Obama for his part apologized for offending anyone, and explained away his comments by focusing only on the clinging-to-guns-and-religion part—calling them proud traditions—and initially acting as if he hadn’t also suggested they cling to bigotry. In the end, though, conservatives still refer to bitter-clinging as shorthand for what they see as the president’s elitism. The president was able to uncling himself from the gaffe, aided as he was by any number of factors, including—in the eyes of officials with Clinton and Sen. John McCain—a media eager to change the subject from Obama missteps.
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