For the first time, the Newspaper Association of America and the American Society of Newspaper Editors credentialed bloggers to cover their annual convention. I had a bird’s eye view seat during Barack Obama’s appearance before the Associated Press annual luncheon.
Obama addressed the fallout from his comments that small town voters are “bitter” and “…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:”
As I said yesterday, I regret some of the words I chose, partly because the way that these remarks have been interpreted have offended some people and partly because they have served as one more distraction from the critical debate that we must have in this election season.
He acknowledged what lies ahead if he’s the Democratic nominee:
Now, Senator McCain and the Republicans in Washington are already looking ahead to the fall and have decided that they plan on using these comments to argue that I'm out of touch with what's going on in the lives of working Americans. I don't blame them for this -- that's the nature of our political culture, and if I had to carry the banner for eight years of George Bush's failures, I'd be looking for something else to talk about too.
Obama’s prepared remarks were followed by a Q&A session. He was lucky no plucky citizen journalist was allowed to ask a question. It was, after all, a blogger, Mayhill Fowler, who broke “Bittergate.”
Instead, the questions were “gathered earlier this morning” from the newspaper executives and editors in attendance. They included mostly softballs and one, um, zinger: Tell us why your supporters love you (h/t: Laurie White).
I missed John McCain who addressed the group a few hours earlier. Laurie told me that unlike Obama’s pre-screened questions, folks lined up at a microphone and fired away at McCain.
It speaks volumes about the state of the mainstream media that a question about the meaning of Obamamania was asked, but AP Chairman Dean Singleton announced they were running out of time so they will avoid the “bitter question.”