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 toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Yes, I get it.  People vote on these social issues, because neither party is assisting with the economic crises that have afflicted them.  Therefore, they end up voting against their economic interests, since the Republicans are at least offering them some red meat on guns, religion, gays, and immigrants.  It's the Thomas Frank argument, and it's true.

That said, where to begin with your formulation here, Senator?   Did you have to tie "guns" to "religion" to "anti-immigrant sentiment" to "anti-trade sentiment", all in one frigging sentence?  Do all gun owners in Pennsylvania hate immigrants?  Do all of these small-town folk "cling" to religion merely because of their economic problems?  Are the steel workers' problems with trade policy just some emotional diversion? 

These aren't the arguments Obama was making.  But the extremely poor choice of words, now available in audio, certainly makes it easy for his rivals to hammer home that impression.  It will come off to many as the height of condescension. 

Here is this young, urbane, highly educated, wealthy black politician from Chicago\Hawaii\Kenya, explaining to even wealthier liberal donors in California the kooky ways of the 12-gauge loving, bible-thumping, 'spic-hating hicks from the sticks of Pennsylvania.  Thank God this at least didn't take place in San Francisco.  Oh shit, it did.

Oddly, the Clinton campaign didn't seize on these unfortunate particulars.  Instead, they focused on his choice of the word "bitter".  Here's Hillary's take:

“It’s being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are bitter; well, that’s not my experience,” Mrs. Clinton told an audience at Drexel University.

Obama swung at this lob, and, much like the way he did with the Philadelphia speech on race, chose to own the "scandal" on his own terms, rather than run from or apologize for it:

“Here’s what’s rich,” Mr. Obama said.  “Senator Clinton said, ‘Well I don’t think people are bitter in Pennsylvania.  I think Barack is being condescending.’  John McCain said, ‘How could he say that?  How could he say that people are bitter?  He obviously is out of touch with people.’  Out of touch?  Out of touch?  John McCain — it took him three times to finally figure out that home foreclosure was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch?  Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored banruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt, after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I'm out of touch?  No, I'm in touch.”

It's unusually good luck that the other campaigns are more interested in his labeling lower-income Pennsylvanians "bitter", than in the frame he provided for the social issues.  I mean, come on, we're all bitter.  We've had George W. Bush as president for 8 years—it's a no-brainer.  I think this was a wisely deployed rebuttal. 

But it wasn't necessary.  He's just opening up yet another nationwide "conversation".  This time, instead of it being about what black people really think, it will be about what religious, gun-owning, hard-pressed white people really think.  And that's not a topic Barack should pretend he is an expert on, nor is it one he really needs to have going into the final stretch of the Pennsylvania campaign.

His remarks weren't condescending.  Worse.  They were Kerryesque.

It's exactly 10 days until the Pennsylvania primary.  If Barack can continue closing in the polls, and win this one—even by 1 measly point—the nomination will be his.  It's time to decide, Senator.  Are you running to become Professor Obama, or President Obama?