What a way to win votes, don’t you think?

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.

Go read the rest of the post, the writer should be hired by Obama for spinning his gaffes. It’s funny that she would have given the enemy such great ammunition.
(via)
McCain’s people jumped on it right away:

Asked to respond, McCain adviser Steve Schmidt called it a “remarkable statement and extremely revealing.”
“It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking,” Schmidt said. “It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans.”

I thought he was an elitist when I heard it.
And of course Clinton isn’t going to let it slide:

“It’s being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who face hard times are bitter,” Clinton said during a campaign event in Philadelphia. “Well that’s not my experience. As I travel around Pennsylvania. I meet people who are resilient, optimist positive who are rolling up their sleeves.”
“Pennsylvanians don’t need a president who looks down on them,” she said. “They need a president who stands up for them, who fights hard for your future, your jobs, your families.”

It wasn’t the experience of the HuffPo writer who broke the story either.
If I were Clinton, I would be playing the quote 24/7 on radio and bringing it up on every interview I did.