Barack Obama says he regrets remarks he made last week about small-town residents.
The Democratic presidential candidate talked with James Romoser of the Winston-Salem Journal, who reports on his blog that Obama defended the core of what he was trying to say.
At a fundraiser in San Francisco, Obama had said that people suffering economically in small towns "get bitter" and "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment" to explain their frustration.
He told Romoser that wording was unfortunate.
"Well look, if there — obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that," he said. "But the underlying truth of what I said remains, which is simply that people who have seen their way of life upended because of economic distress are frustrated and rightfully so."
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Re: Obama speaks the truth (and is punished accordingly)
Clarification:
I do not mean to suggest that resistance to immigration or trade are necessarily desirable values. I am only calling them traditional; and any serious study of prevailing American attitudes over the past two centuries will make my case.