The problem isn't that Obama used the word "bitter"

[brentspeak]

It's that he was telling a bunch of well-off neo-liberals what they wanted to hear concerning small-town America, echoing the "latte liberals'" preconceived notions of rural Americans -- who they most likely have never even met.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of 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 to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/obama-no-surprise-that-ha_b_96188.html

I highlighted the last sentence.

If Obama had stopped simply at the word "bitter", no one could possibly object. But then to say that those same (justifiably bitter) average small-town Americans are 1) a bunch of gun nuts; 2) fundamentalist Christians; and 3) xenophobes and bigots makes Obama look like he's auditioning to become the head of the DLC: he managed to out-Hillary Hillary in the "latte liberal" department.

But the real kicker here is very last thing Obama said: that small-town America irrationally "clings" to an "anti-trade sentiment" -- that it blames trade for their frustations.

Um, duh??? Isn't the issue of trade the most major differences with Hillary that Obama is campaigning on? Hasn't he already said at rallies that it's the lopsided free-trade agreements which have created much of the economic devastation that Obama is referring to? Isn't that part and parcel of Obama's justified slams against Hillary re. her support of NAFTA? So what the hell is he talking about?

It doesn't matter that Obama would be a better President than Hillary (he would be), and that Hillary out-DLC's him by default; it's going to be very difficult for small-town America to look past Obama's astonishingly stupid speech.

[Faygo Kid]

1. Wrong highlight. Try this one: the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them

Selective editing, or what?

You're going to lose on this one. Again. You still don't get it.

[MercutioATC]

3. Exactly. Regardless of where you put the emphasis, he's right.

He may have made the original statement in CA, but he didn't soften the message in IN. It's true everywhere.

[brentspeak]

4. And is that quote you selected what the McCain-paid ads will be highlighting when they go national?

Supposing Obama does manage to win the nomination?

"You're going to lose on this one. Again. You still don't get it."

You're apparently confusing me with someone else.

[jackson_dem]

2. Great post and good observation about the trade part

That has gone totally over the head of Obamites, who believe the fairy tale that Obama isn't a "free" trader in the mold of the DLC. The guy is even slightly more "free trade" than Hillary Clinton if you look at their policies.

[MercutioATC]

9. The point is that NONE of these things (guns, god, gays, trade, etc.) are the real issue...

...they're symptoms.

Symptoms of the disease of politicians making decisions in a vacuum. Symptoms of the disease of politicians who don't relate to their constituents. Symptoms of the disease of politicians who tell the people "I feel your pain" , make promises of prosperity, and fail to deliver.

Obama, IMO, expressed that well today.

[jackson_dem]

27. See the problem, even if we accept this favorable interpretation of Obama's remarks?

Here was have a Ivy League millionaire from Chicago in San Francisco talking to a bunch of millionaires stating the "correct" way working folks in small towns should think. At minimum his remarks are condescending and the optics are terrible. He is among the last people who should be saying this--and in front of millionaires in SAN FRAN of all places? :wtf: was he thinking?

Don't forget this did not occur in a vacuum. There is pastorgate, Michelle Obama's "proud" comment, and Barack himself stereotyping "typical white" people. The GE ads write themselves. Just roll the tapes. And all this is ignoring Ayrers, Obama's Willie Horton.

[AX10]

32. Obama will have

alot of "willie horton's".

[NanceGreggs]

5. Let's see here ...

Obama says: "And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

You then 'translate' that into his having said: "But then to say that those same (justifiably bitter) average small-town Americans are 1) a bunch of gun nuts; 2) fundamentalist Christians; and 3) xenophobes and bigots ..."

And then you refer to it as his "astonishingly stupid speech"?

The astonishingly stupid speech-making here is obviously your own.

[brentspeak]

11. Wait. Hold on. Rewind.

Exactly how does the expression "cling to guns" not invoke the image of the "gun nut"?

Likewise, "cling to religion" and "fundamentalists"?

When Obama said that when bitter small-town Americans cling to "antipathy to people who aren't like them", you're saying that he wasn't saying that they're bigots??? He was, instead, calling them "enlightened"? "Progressive"? "Liberal"?

:wow: :wow: :wow:

[NanceGreggs]

12. Maybe it's just me ...

... or, more probably, maybe it's just you.

No, I do NOT think of "gun-toting nuts" when someone says "cling to". Why you obviously DO immediately think that is beyond me.

Many people who are anti-immigration are NOT bigots. They are not anti-Mexican, or anti any other ethnic group. They are anti-someone-taking-their-job.

There IS a difference.

[brentspeak]

16. It's not the "anti-immigration" part that's the killer

It's the "antipathy to people who aren't like them" that immediately precedes it. There's only one way for a listener or reader to interpret that.

I know about the issues surrounding illegal immigration, but that issue isn't the issue -- it's the political issue of Obama's words. When one runs for the President of the United States, the only things that matter are the politics of words and image. If you goof-up enough, that's it -- you lose.

[NanceGreggs]

19. I suppose you know ...

... that he repeated this story an hour ago, and the crowd went wild?

So much for that "astonishingly stupid speech".

You take his words, twist them into meaning something completely negative and not at all reflective of what he actually said, and then you talk about how it couldn't be interpreted any other way.

Hmmmm ... you might want to think about that.

[spoony]

55. An Obama crowd cheered Obama?

Well, obviously that settles that.

Obama said something stupid here. He defined positive aspects of many people's lives as negatives. It isn't a huge deal, but it was clearly a badly articulated idea.

[Two Americas]

40. the danger there

Drawing the battle lines between enlightened upscale "progressives" on the one hand and gun-toting fundies on the other, gives us a solid base of about 15% of the population and makes it difficult to get enough voters from the other 85% to win elections. We are staking our political fortunes on what are really demographic prejudices and lifestyle preferences and choices and not on a political stand.

By way of contrast, were we to draw the battle line between the interests of capital and the interests of labor, we would start with a solid base of 70% of the public. This is where the Republicans draw the battle line - they know what the fight is about. Nothing helps them more than to draw the battle line on cultural issues such as guns and religion. Historically, the Democrats also drew the line between labor and capital, and that has always led to our greatest success.

It matter not that the progressives are "right" about this. I don't happen to think they are, but nevertheless being "right" is the consolation prize in politics. Too many liberals are willing to accept that consolation prize, and would rather fight for the prejudices and preferences of those in the very narrow segment of the population they represent - educated, professional, upscale, suburban folks - and lose, then they would take the right wingers on directly over issues of power and economics.

What Obama said plays to the 15%, at the expense of risking alienating the other 85%. It is a bad trade-off, and one that the party has been making with increasing frequency.

[intaglio]

57. Cling to does not mean "Nut"

Cling to means grasping for some stable point in the whole sorry morass. Is the survivor of a sinking a treehugger nut because they grasp a scrap of timber to help them float?

People cling to guns because they believe it makes them safer and more secure; gun nuts idolise guns and see them as the answer to all problems

People cling to religion to make sense of a world that seems too big, too impersonal and too uncaring; fundamentalists want to change the world so it conforms to their idea of faith

Clinging to an antipathy does not mean you are a bigot any more than clinging to demostrably untrue analysis means you are without reason, Rewind.

[lumberjack_jeff]

24. It was condescending in the extreme.

The clear intent was to rationalize his stereotype of rural americans who (in his view) embody everything our more enlightened, more urbane, cousins reject. No one likes to be stereotyped.

"I know how you feel"
- no you don't.
"...and I can understand where some of your more objectionable views come from"
- you didn't hear me.
"...those bigoted and small minded sentiments help you cope with some of the problems you face."
- and the horse you rode in on too, pal.

Let me put it another way:

"And it's not surprising they get bitter, they cling to their Cosmopolitan magazine, their Lifetime channel, antipathy to men or feelings of victimization to explain their frustrations."

Are you seeing it yet?

It was latte liberalism with two capital "L"s

[NanceGreggs]

31. Sorry, but the jury is coming in ...

... and the speech, and its concept, is going over extremely well with the voters.

Once again Hill throws the boomerang ...

[Awsi Dooger]

38. Your analysis is comically blindfolded

Do you honestly believe the "jury" is same-day reaction during the primaries? That is such incompetent handicapping it deserves its own laugh track.

A candidate can't afford to submit a handful of easily remembered big picture summaritive negatives into national discourse. Particularly a newcomer, running on judgment and inclusiveness. And that's what Obama has accomplished, via Wright and now this small town masochism.

Newsflash: the speeches Obama gave following Wright, and today after the gaffe, didn't even exist. They won't exist during the general election, when voters are carefully fed the basics via devastating GOP scripts.

[Two Americas]

44. November is when the jury will come in

I have no doubt that liberal activists are thrilled with what Obama said. I won't argue about whether or not they or he are "right" - this isn't theology, it is politics.

But that is the wrong jury to convince. In fact, convincing that jury is a matter of playing to their prejudices, and those prejudices are a distinct handicap for the party in the general. That demographic is a relatively small but very influential number of people - it looms large now during the primary season because they dominate the process - and cannot grow, and has many features that alienate the general public. That should be obvious to any sober observer, having seen the defection of the blue collar workers to the Republicans. They are not so much voting for the Republicans, as they are voting against the 15% or so of the population - upscale well-off professionals promoting alternative spiritual and lifestyle and cultural programs - that controls the party and the left.

Many in the activist community explain the fact that the Republicans have been getting 50% or so of the working class vote by saying that all of those people are stupid, fundy, gun-toting, mouth-breathing inbred, knuckle-dragging - need I go on? A week can't go by here - perhaps a day - without someone saying "how can the Murkin people be so stupid???" It is foolish to deny that this prejudice exists. Does it not ever occur to anyone that the reason people vote Republican is because they are voting against that - against the people who are calling them all stupid?

[lumberjack_jeff]

60. I don't feel equipped to speak for "the voters"

I speak for me.

[napi21]

6. No, I think the reason he's being chastized is for linking bitter and

religion & guns. If that sentence had been "Bitter against anti-trade, immigrants and people who aren't like them" I think it might have gone unnoticed. Especially if he had followed it up by saying it was the UNFAIR trade agreements of the past, and our tax laws that reward businesses for sending jobs offshore.

I'm still having a hard time understanding why someone in his campaign hasn't coached him about guns/religion, and what NOT TO SAY!

[Mz Pip]

7. Guns & religion

the third rail in Democratic politics. Obama was correct. He made the mistake of saying it out loud.

[Two Americas]

45. FDR

FDR built a broad coalition of support that resulted in government that was more progressive than anything we hear promoted by progressives today, and guns and religion had nothing to do with that one way or the other.

[TLM]

8. He should hire Hillary's coach....

Then he can piss away a 28 point advantage in 2 weeks too.

[malik flavors]

10. The point he was making is...

that the problem isn't immigrants, gays, or trade, the problem is that government is failing the American citizens. But when you've been let down year after year you start to concentrate on these distractions instead of the real problem, and along with these distractions, issues like gun rights or religious issues begin to take precedent over economic ones.

He could have put it better than he did, but that's what he was really saying. Unfortunately, he'll be taken out of context from now until the end of the election season.

[napi21]

18. I KNOW THAT! But that's NOT what's going to be remembered

by the rural folks!

HEY, I hate it that all candidates have to always be so politically correct all the damn time, and hopefully several good ones will get elected and put all this BS 6 feet under, but until then, Barack & all Dems have to play the damn game. If they don't they'll never get a win!

[DearAbby]

39. You must believe people in Rural America are IDIOTS

who is looking down thier noses now? People understand, and they are fucking angry at the government, they feel they have no voice, no representation. When government break their necks to bail out large corporations and banks instead of working at making life easier for the average American. People in New Orleans are still waiting...People across this country with no healthcare or under-insured are still waiting...you dont think they are bitter?

Are Americans Bitter...you fucking a-john we are. Now you are trying to piss on our backs telling us it's raining instead....STOP PISSING. If you are not bitter, not angry...then you are either GOP or not paying attention!

[anamandujano]

50. He was insulting the voters of PA who he knows aren't going to vote for him.

[Ilithiad]

13. Astonishingly stupid...

is spot on....Open mouth insert foot...I was waiting for him to make a speech slip up...but this is not a slipup it was an earthquake....This will be huge. This will hurt him in PA and Indiana. Anyone who defends these remarks are out of touch with reality and just support Obama because they dont like Hillary...I have been saying in other threads he is not experienced...words matter more than deeds...well this time the deed was words and they matter a whole lot.

[Liberal Gramma]

14. hope you don't trip and hurt yourself

while doing your dance of joy. What he said was true. There is a great deal of anger, cynicism, and bitterness in this country today. No one trusts the government. We cling to those things that give us some comfort in a world where we feel lost and alone and afraid.

[KoKo]

22. So ....what is Obama's solution to the problem that other Presidents haven't fixed

in 25 years. What Obama says may have truth to it but it's preaching to the audience. Pointing out what he sees as the problem...but as President how will he act to bring jobs into those areas that have been draining jobs for two decades? My problem with Obama is that he's a Preacher and his audience becomes almost evangelical in their zeal for his views and his message of Hope and Change. But, I never hear what he plans to do about anything. It's one thing to "inspire" ....Bill Clinton surely did and Obama comes at a time when the country is so much more desperate than in 91....but isn't he just a preachier version of Clinton?

BTW...Jimmy Carter ran on Hope and Change, too. He was "out of the system"...having been a peanut farmer. He was not liked when he was in office because he made many mistakes and the Beltway inner circle turned on him just like they did with Clinton. Hope & Change have been done before...but Obama makes it seem new because so many are desperate to hear anything positive after seven years of Hell with the Bush Crime Family. :shrug:

[Liberal Gramma]

29. You make a very good point

Carter wasn't effective because he didn't have the machine behind him. Obama won't have it either, but this time I'm hoping that the American people will be smart enough to stand up for what's right.

[Ilithiad]

34. Sounds like you...

are saying these people are church clingers and gun lovers and anti-immigration because washington has abandon them taken their jobs away? What comfort is there in a gun?! What comfort is there in religion when there are those who want to change our pledgge of alleigance and take god out of it? Take God's name off of historical monuments? Basically squash our freedom of religion..SO I should be a racist because I am lost alone and afraid? Bullshit. If my job is gone then I blame those who take away my job....some immigrant did not take my job away...the company i worked for took it away...anti-trade sentiments? Isn't he blasting clinton for supporting Nafta? So doing that means he is anti-trade and now he is flipflopping saying these small town pa is anti-trade because their job is gone...makes Obama pro trade does it not?

[Laurab]

17. Yup, it's HUGH!!!!! I'm switching to Hillary now.....

A frigging EARTHQUAKE.......he's DOOMED. He's got to stop telling the truth, dammit. I want a president who tells lie after lie to me cause it will bring back jobs and stuff.

Those remarks don't NEED to be defended, incidentally.

[anigbrowl]

35. Yep, it's really hurting him in Indiana. People are standing up to him

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc9PepjyDow

[Elisabethveron77]

15. Great point

These comments, even if accurate, will be used as ammo by the right as they stereotypes of rural Pennsyvania, and even other southern states may feel offended.

[mtnsnake]

20. You nailed it. Excellent point. Shit like that is going to come back to bite him in the ass

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. I have to agree. As a rural guy, it comes off as condescending.

Well... more condescending than usual.

Totally tone deaf. Maybe he needs to direct some of that legendary foreign policy expertise to rural america.

[DemBones DemBones]

23. You identified what he said that was incredibly stupid,

then ignored everything HRC has said against NAFTA, and claimed he'd be a better president than HRC.

He wouldn't, and he won't get a chance. Hillary is going to win the next several primaries and the nomination and the election. If he pulls some of his Chicago tricks and somehow gets the nomination, McCain wins.

Obama screwed up by starting to run for president his first year in the Senate, without making an attempt to cut his ties to questionable people. He could have left Trinity Church years ago but he didn't. No political smarts. Huge sense of entitlement.

He went to Kenya on taxpayers' money and campaigned for his cousin Raila Odinga, who is a Marxist Muslim. You think that was smart?

[Laurab]

62. "No political smarts"??

Some HRC supporters are incredibly delusional. Obama was virtually UNKNOWN, and now he's kicking her ass in the primary. How could that happen if he had no "political smarts"? It couldn't.

Everytime Hillary Clinton tries to twist a comment of his into something like this, he explains it, and it comes back to bite her. WHO has no "political smarts"?
And "sense of entitlement"? I have never seen one in Obama - it must be Hillary you're thinking of. Hillary - the one who is willing to do anything, even if it includes lessening the chance of the Dems winning the election, to bring down the person who will be the nominee in November. It's HER TURN, dammit! How dare he?

Hillary is not going to win the nomination, unless she cheats. If she cheats, she will lose the election, because so many in her own party won't vote for her. She has many more ties to "questionable" people than Obama could ever dream of.

"Chicago tricks"? You can't really believe that, either. Obama is running a brilliant campaign. He's proven over and over again that he can overcome dirty campaign tactics, like the ones the Clintons keep trying. He'll be well-prepared for the GE thanks to them. Hopefully this will be over after PA - people have got to accept reality sooner or later.

[MichiganVote]

25. Even if what O said is true, and I happen to think it is, it si not a good time to

kick Americans of any stripe in the can. Sorry, that's just the plain fact of the matter. It may be courageous, it may be truthful, but its not going to speak to the message of 'hope'. And that's what people have come to expect from him.

Enough to lose a nomination? Doubtful.

[Two Americas]

46. but it is not true

Not in Michigan, it isn't. Rural people are more likely to go to their little community church - as are urban poor people and minority people, by the way - and more likely to own guns than suburbanites are. But even in the reddest of red rural areas, still, 40-45% of the people are Democrats. Almost every household in rural Michigan has firearms. Are we to imagine that the Democratic voting households do not own guns and the Republican voting households do? Or that only Republicans go to church?

There is no way around this - Obama's remarks reinforced some destructive and inaccurate stereotypes and prejudices, and those prejudices are poison for the party and play right into the hands of the right wingers. His remarks were arrogant and condescending.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. Using snotty generalizations like "latte liberal" is way more offensive than anything Obama said. nt

[zalinda]

28. What I find so offensive

is that he's telling rural folks that they are stupid. "A hey, howdy fella, stop clinging to that there gun, you're really bitter with the government, not that there immigrant." It's like telling some guy that he's gay because he had a domineering mom. Pure BS.

Rural people cling to their guns, because they NEED them. But, don't tell that to the Chicago dude, he's never had a bear come around his house, or a fox come and kill his chickens. And Religion? Yeah, tell a rural family to stop praying to God for the rain to come so their crops don't die, or thanking God when that old tractor starts up again. Religion is a comforting tradition in rural life. No, let's just have some know-it-all Chicago politician tell rural people why they are the way they are, and make fun of their life to some SF rich folk. Yeah, that'll show 'um.

zalinda

[AX10]

30. Obama has put religion into a negative context..

all the while he is trying to reach out to the religious community.
Strange.

[Two Americas]

51. good points

It is even much more than that, and most middle class liberal suburbanites are deeply prejudiced - although calling themselves liberals and therefore officially presumed to be "tolerant" exempts them from being challenged on this, they claim - and alienate people without realizing that they do.

Just as in the African American communities in the cities, the church is a social center and a source of community solidarity and support for people that the striving "winners" in suburbia and the corporate world have abandoned and hold in contempt.

The divide here is not so much political, as it is cultural: traditionalists versus modernists; blue collar versus white; small landholders versus office dwellers and corporate employees; real labor versus paper-pushing; living life versus perfecting lifestyles.

[IsItJustMe]

33. You have to consider everything in the over all context of things. If you just take bits and pieces

of what anyone says, without considering the big picture, like I believe you have done in your post, you can make anyone, and I do mean anyone, yourself included, seem hypocrital.

[Jamastiene]

36. Obama can kiss my small town ass. n/t

[Two Americas]

37. yes indeed

"...he was telling a bunch of well-off neo-liberals what they wanted to hear concerning small-town America, echoing the 'latte liberals' preconceived notions of rural Americans -- who they most likely have never even met."

Yes, that is the point. And the reaction? Well-off neo-liberals saying they heard what they wanted to hear concerning small town America, and agreeing with the pre-conceived notions, illustrating your point rather than refuting it.

What we are seeing is the culmination of a trend that has been building for years - the qualities that most appeal to the 15% or so of the population who determine the direction of the party and select our nominees happens to also be those which most offend and alienate the other 85% of the population.

[jackson_dem]

41. Good post

:thumbsup:

[anonymous171]

42. Isn't Hillary a neo-liberal?

[funflower]

43. "Well-off neo-liberals?" "Latte liberals?"

Sounds like you're echoing some preconceived notions there, pardner.

The term "latte liberal" was invented by someone trying to pander to an audience's preconceived notions about people in cities.

It's a neat little way to dismiss a whole segment of the democratic party. I'll bet we'll be hearing it a lot this year - from the McCain campaign.

[Awsi Dooger]

47. Remarks like this chip away at our situational advantage

That's the problem. The only way we lose is if our candidate blows it, surrendering just enough of the generic tilt.

I realize the argument is Hillary is so polarizing she forfeits the edge by definition, simply by being Hillary. I would claim she is a known quantity so nothing recent matters in the long run. Give me long established D vs. long established R in this climate and I'll take my chances of winning a photo finish.

Obama has 46 to 54 potential in November. Gaffes like this one move the arrow slowly toward the lower digit, whether his desperate supporters are willing to grasp that, or not.

When you're explaining, you're losing. A hurried speech 5 hours later is the epitome of explaining. The Republican media machine doesn't need to explain these remarks. Just send them out there, as is, not unlike, "I voted for it before I voted against it." Or, if you want another example, try Kerry's "stuck in Iraq." To this day the media presents that as an attack on soldiers, and not Bush himself.

I'm hardly comparing Kerry's charisma and deflective skills to Obama's. But we've got to realize group summaries inevitably come across as downward peering. Particularly when they reinforce stereotypes of our party. After '04 many DUers, even rabid Deaniacs, conceded his pickup truck and confederate flag remark had hurt him, and would have been summoned by the GOP for impact in rural areas if Dean had been the nominee. This is along the same lines, if not more masochistically broad and veering, but we're trying to scrub it.

[Yes We Did]

48. You drunk the Clinton kool-aid... Bush used much of the same argument

Clinton wants to talk like people from small towns. She wants to act like them. You can have a beer with them.

The kicker though... Hillary isn't small town. She's rich. Bush was too.

You don't yet know what you are looking at. YOu are looking at someone who talks just like Bush. Bush didn't grow up in Texas... though he'd have you believe he did. He'd have you believe he was poor too. That he was average.

Obama knows what it's like to be poor. Clinton doesn't know what it's like to be poor. You are looking at a woman and hoping she is like you but the truth of the matter is that she is nothing like the rural areas of PA.

Please people, wake up!

[Two Americas]

52. nothing to do with Clinton

What does Clinton have to do with this discussion?

[Yes We Did]

49. You may not like what he said and that's it. The truth hurts but he didn't call anyone a nut! Stop

yourself. People do cling to petty issues when they don't have a job. They don't believe those jobs are coming back because if they were coming back then it would have happened by now.

What have you heard for the last 7 years? Gay rights. Guns. Abortion. Religion. When you can't get the job you latch onto what you can get.

[lander]

53. BZZT.

Wrong, Pat Buchanan -- and everyone knows it but you.
(and the other six people who will respond to this comment with fierce fauxrage)

[2rth2pwr]

54. Here are pictures of Obama's day in SF- This is where he threw the people of PA under the bus

Latte Liberals? Maybe. Definitely Limosine Liberals



http://www.zombietime.com/obama_visits_billionaires_row/

[RBInMaine]

56. He is CORRECTLY saying these folks are FRUSTRATED as hell, and that this kind of anger often makes

it easier for people to then be lurred into misplaced anger at other ethnic groups, and that the right wingers will take advantage of the frustration by using issues like guns, god, and gays as diversions of that frustration. The evangeligal churches TARGET people for membership in small towns and rural areas that have been hit hard economically.

[2rth2pwr]

61. Um, Obama disagrees. He says he could have said it better.

[rodeodance]

58. John Mellencamp--His song: about small town America here:

Well I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town
Probly die in a small town
Oh, those small communities

All my friends are so small town
My parents live in the same small town
My job is so small town
Provides little opportunity

Educated in a small town
Taught the fear of jesus in a small town
Used to daydream in that small town
Another boring romantic thats me

But Ive seen it all in a small town
Had myself a ball in a small town
Married an l.a. doll and brought her to this small town
Now shes small town just like me

No I cannot forget where it is that I come from
I cannot forget the people who love me
Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town
And people let me be just what I want to be

Got nothing against a big town
Still hayseed enough to say
Look whos in the big town
But my bed is in a small town
Oh, and thats good enough for me

Well I was born in a small town
And I can breathe in a small town
Gonna die in this small town
And thats probly where theyll bury me

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/john+mellencamp/small+town_20074448.html

[Texas Hill Country]

59. this is exactly right.