… what seems like the most overblown “gaffe” in the history of the world. It seems that the words were poorly chosen, but the point he’s making isn’t original. Hell, there was an entire book written on the point he was making.

The idea that people don’t trust the government to do anything useful about their jobs or the economy and therefore ignore that when they vote seems pretty obvious. For what it’s worth (and I’ve been vocal on my views on the primary), I don’t see the big deal with what he said. But then again, I’m a Northeast liberal or something, so say the Clinton and McCain supporters at least.

On a related note, if you want to see the worst coming out from Clinton supporters, simply go read any comment thread at TalkLeft on a post by Jeralyn or BTD. Holy crap, these people hate Obama.

On a more positive note, I finished my taxes and, through the magic of e-filing, the IRS has accepted them. Awesome.

Update: I guess I should clarify — I didn’t get the impression, reading the original quote, that Obama was putting down guns and faith voters, but saying that of the range of issues, economic, faith, foreign policy, etc, voters in middle America have lost faith in the government’s interest in fixing economic issues, so they fall back to voting on the other issues. It doesn’t really strike me as controversial. If you want to argue that he’s wrong, that’s fine. This whole idea that he was putting down rural or central Pennsylvanian voters is silly, though.

This isn’t a new idea. Thomas Frank wrote a book about it, as I said. While I didn’t love the book, the core of the argument seems sound to me. In fact, Obama himself has addressed this before in a more formal interview setting where his wording conveys his actual beliefs:

Look, if you disagree with the premise here, campaign on it. His wording wasn’t great but Clinton and the GOP’s response is stupid. Truly.