The last 8 years have been rough, probably longer than the last 8, but I would say that I've been cognisant of my world and how the person in the White House affects my life for the past 8 years so I'll start there. I grew up in Indianapolis, my parents still live there - I'm a midwestern girl. Things have been finanically difficult for everyone in my life. Jobs have been lost, income has been siginificantly reduced, homes have been foreclosed...it's left people sad, angry and yes, I'll say it, bitter. People are losing their homes, people don't have money to send their children to school, they've been working hard and the rich are getting richer and they middle class is disappearing. That makes people b i t t e r. Don't believe me? There are websites and blogs devoted to blaming undocumented immigrants because of their drain on the US workforce. They are some of the most embittered and angry sentiments I've read. (and those are from a "liberal elistest" site) But the truth is that the undocumented are being scapegoated because of a larger issues like NAFTA and outsourced jobs.
"The most respected recent studies show that most Americans would notice little difference in their paychecks if illegal immigrants suddenly disappeared from the United States. That's because most Americans don't directly compete with illegal immigrants for jobs" - NPR.org
They need to believe that someone can fix it for them. Isn't that all he was saying? When did we get so sensitive? And one other thing. Isn't the point to get a Democrat in the White House? Then why is Sentor Clinton jumping on the McCain bash this bitter thing into the ground when her husband ran almost the same campaign Obama is running in 1991? (see here and here) This has to stop. If we're going to have 2 candidates for several more months, then let's see them go after the really bad guy and have a cease fire on each other. Alexis, Crystal - you're both pretty.
When you disparage people for their legal personal habits (gun ownership)or religious beliefs in this country you stepped in it. I like Senator Obama and would like for him to win. However, putting down certain groups of people is not the way to do it. If he meant to commiserate with their plight he picked an extremely poor way to do it. I see the media is immediately explaining that's not what he said. On other occasions they've explained that's not what he meant when his words caused controversy. Has any other Democratic candidate ever had such a sympathetic media? None in recent memory. Of course that's now. Let's see what happens if Obama wins the nomination. After all, the media has said openly they like McCain and don't like Clinton. Maybe the Democratic leadership want Obama because they see a Democratic candidate that the media (finally) likes.