One man stood up and said, "We have lost a lot of jobs here in Erie, and it's quite all right with us if you tell people that we are bitter." That brought the whole crowd to their feet in applause once again, and Obama said, "That's the biggest response we've had all day!"
What few pundits these days seem to understand is that what most people want from politicians isn't feel-good platitudes, but honesty. It's why John McCain claims to be a practitioner of "straight talk." You don't want a doctor to lie to you about your condition. If you're feeling sick, you know it, and you want a cure, even if it hurts. If you're out of a job, you know life sucks. If a politician says "guess what, these people think life sucks when you don't have a job," then that's called empathy.
