Now we come to it: the real fight for Obama in the harsh light of day. What Obama is up against is essentially the jeering section of the national lunatic asylum. What America is up against is the very real possibility that this jeering section will out shout the rest of us. Beware lest we let them sneer us into oblivion.
The battle lines of the contest for the Democratic Party nomination and the White House are clear. Strip away the euphemisms and we see that the choice before us is not a choice between various candidates and various positions but a choice of historic magnitude about the character of America.
Something is definitely out of whack in American politics when the candidate who tells the truth gets pilloried and the biggest liars in recent history occupy the White House. But that’s just what happened this week, when Barack Obama made a comment about how frustrated rural citizens “cling to guns and religion,” which his opponent Hillary Clinton says indicates Obama is out of touch with rural America. A little investigation, however, shows it may be the critics who are out of touch. A couple of weeks before Obama made his comment, I was talking about the economy to my friend Rex Seeley, who owns Montana Outdoor Sports in Helena. Like most Montana outdoor shops, Seeley sells fishing rods, waders, lures and flies, outdoor clothing, backpacks, rafts, kayaks, and, of course, guns–rifles, pistols, shotguns and reloading equipment. He’s been in the same business for more than two decades, through good and gloomy economic times, so I questioned him about whether he thought we were headed toward or already in a recession. Without pause he replied: “We’re already in a recession.” “How can you tell?” I asked. “Because gun and ammo sales have been booming,” he said, “and people always buy guns and ammo when the economy is in the tank.” While there is undoubtedly plenty of room to argue about what may motivate people facing economic uncertainties to stock up on guns and ammo, there’s really no reason to doubt the firsthand experience of a longtime local businessman concerning the sales in his own store. And remember, this happened way before Obama’s comments hit the headlines, so Seeley had no motive whatsoever to prevaricate or spin his response because of politics.
This is the entire article : http://www.missoulanews.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=587759DF-14D1-13A2-9F84A83142FE0CA5
