There is no need for crocodile tears for the American worker. He has for the last fifty years or so consistently voted against his own economic interests. Let him wallow in his bitterness.

The problem for the working class and others on the lower end of the economic spectrum is how to counter the influence of big capital. At one time labor unions performed this function, however imperfectly. Since labor has declined in importance the lower orders have no one to educate, to inform, to represent them. As a result they are subject to the appeals of the Republicans, the appeal of prejudice, ethnic hatred, and just plain misanthropy. I pity the lower orders but I don't know how to reach them. Neither does Obama or Hillary Clinton. Our next President, as a result, will be John McCain. We could do worse.

We could also do better if a Democratic candidate knew how to explain things to the masses. But no one has been able to do that since FDR.

Norman Ravitch

Savannah, GA

I don't think that people's religious beliefs or hunting are related to the ups and down of Wall Street or sub-prime mortgages. These are ongoing activities that are part of their lives. Bitterness over the economy, with the outsourcing of jobs and industries, along with the in sourcing of cheap labor to drive down wages in this country and the immigrants home countries, is not restricted to small towns, but it is felt all over the country. If the next President or Congress dismisses these concerns and doesn't deal with them, they will serve only one term. He or she will also be facing an economic meltdown that "free trade" or "globalization" cannot fix. It will require national solutions in every country.

Pervis J. Casey

Riverside, CA

I believe that it's crucial for understanding the meaning of the ubiquitous sound-bite that Obama was talking to a group of people who are supporters, who are symbolically if not physically taking action to promote his candidacy. He's describing what people going door-to-door often encounter when they talk to the public in these places. The disillusioned citizens will "get bitter and cling to" these things "as a way to explain their frustrations" to the campaigners. He's not saying that they cling to their religion or their guns because of bitterness but that they will cling to religious arguments or constitutional arguments against challenges to gun ownership etc. as a way to fend off what they have come to expect is the usual bullsh*t promises from politicians.

Although he may be talking to loftier supporters in this case, I firmly believe this is a series of points he makes regularly to his boots on the ground. It's a pep talk for the campaign's front lines.

Ann Zeleny

Boonsboro, MD

Norman Ravitch in his response web letter to Mr. von Hoffman's essay makes a fine point, but I think Mr. Ravitch forgets one thing: it was and remains an intentional campaign of dis- & mis-information directed towards John Q. Public, and it's hard to blame all the solitary John Qs for being hard-earned victims of powerful, willful & even violent deceit, fraud & abuse.

As for Mr. von Hoffman, one thing he most definitely forgets is that it was not just how Barack was quoted but the fact he was "secretly" sharing "private views" with "Bay Area liberals" while "raising money" and discussing "why America is the way it is." Sometimes, context is everything.

Sherlock Debs

San Diego, CA

There is a truly fundamental flaw in Obama's analysis, outside of the fact that he restricted it to small towns: it is the clinging that inhibits the bitterness, not the bitterness that engenders the clinging. You would think that someone against Bush policy and the war in Iraq would know that.

Given the realities detailed in Hoffman's essay, it is always astounding to me that unions seem so universally disdained. And more so in cities than Obama's small towns.

Where, in fact, is the bitterness?

Reverend Wright obviously has some, and I applaud him for it. I'm sure Barack has some too. But this whole idea of somehow getting beyond our bitterness by partaking in a group campfire singalong and making some vain and vague attempt at change just seems backa__wards.

If the idea was to get people in touch with their bitterness by employing a kind of double mirror, that's too clever by at least half.

The whole episode here just again underscores the feeling that Barack isn't really quite sure what he's about, and for a "charismatic" leader that can be a very dangerous thing.

Michael O'Connor

Norwalk, CN

I may have missed this one statistic that I think is also essentially correct: the top 10 percent of Americans own 80 percent of the wealth. Why is China's economy growing at 12 percent while ours is barely sustaining 3 percent? Isn't China still a communist country? Isn't their economy a managed economy, (i.e., nationalized)? Why are we allowing sovereign funds to buy up our country? How were the corporate sycophants so easily able to distort and destroy John Edwards?

James Pinette

Caribou, ME