Recently, during a campaign swing in Oregon, Senator Barack Obama, candidate for US President, displayed a curious ignorance of geography of the country that he proposes to lead. He has increased the size of the United States by at least seven states.
Obama has the following to say at a stop in the town of Beaverton. “It is wonderful to be back in Oregon. Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it.”
Obama supporters ascribed the gaffe to fatigue on the part of the candidate, though some pundits wondered what would have happened had John McCain made it. The gaffe has already resulted in the marketing of US flag label pins with fifty seven stars.
The Obama campaign has been gaffe prone, likely because of the candidate’s inexperience in national politics. Still memorable are the “Bittergate” remarks made to a group of doners in San Francisco in which Obama appeared to denigrate people living in small towns as “bitter” clinging to God and guns and what not. The “Bittergate” gaffe cost Obama a good thrashing in the subsequent Pennsylvania Primary.
Obama’s wife, Michelle, stated that, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.” That statement suggested that up until that point, Ms. Obama had not been proud of her country.
Hillary Clinton’s most famous gaffe was the story of dodging sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia when she had been First Lady. Video evidence strongly suggested that story was not true. The gaffe became the source of endless jokes, especially explaining why Senator Clinton was late to an event.
John McCain has not been entirely immune to the gaffe. McCain, for example, suggested that Iran was training Al Qaeda terrorists fighting in Iraq. Whether Iran is actually training Al Qaeda terrorists as well as Shiite militia terrorists is open to question. In any case McCain, however, immediately corrected himself. Even so, Barack Obama and the leftwing blogosphere mocked McCain for an apparent gaffe.
Earlier McCain had referred to himself as a “Liberal Republican” and then immediately corrected himself and said that he was in fact a “Conservative Republican.” Some conservative pundits wondered if the gaffe was not a Freudian slip on the tongue.
As of the writing of this piece, there are six months left to the Presidential campaign. Those six months contain plenty of opportunity for gaffes, slips of the tongue, bloopers, and malapropisms to trip up the candidates, delight the pundits, and befuddle the voters.
Sources: Barack Obama wants to be president of these 57 United States, Andrew Malcolm, Top of the Ticket Blog, LA Times, May 9th, 2008
Obama Campaign Introduces Customized Label Pins, Suitably Flip Blog, May 9th, 2008
The Bitter Words of Barack Obama, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, April 13th, 2008
Is Michelle Obama Becoming a Problem?, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, February 19th, 2008
Hillary Clinton Caught in a Lie About a Trip to Bosnia, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, March 25th, 2008
A McCain Gaffe in Jordan, Cameron W. Barr and Michael D. Shear, The Trail Blog, Washington Post, March 18th, 2008
John McCain Calls Himself a “Liberal Republican”, Daniel Kurtzman, About.Com, February 29th, 2008
