What's the "bitter-gate"?

Pennsylavania will be voting on April 22 and the stakes are very high for Obama and Clinton. Although Obama has the lead in delegates, Clinton might have a the shadow of a chance of making a comeback if she proves very strong in the last primaries and manages to convince the superdelegates that she is a stronger candidate to send to the November election.

Not much had really been going on lately but a massive row has emerged after comments made by Barack Obama during a private fundraiser in California became public. 

He said that many Pennsylvanians had lost out on the recent economic boom and for the last twenty years local industries have been in decline, and jobs have been lost. "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".  

This short quotation has been commented over and over again since April 5. To most, Obama sounded elitist and seemed to be looking down on working class whites who were religious, pro-gun etc..

  Some have said it should be understood in the wider context of what Obama said that night. 

Hillary Clinton has used it in an ad targeted at this much sought after voting block : the white working and middle class Pensylvanians ( visit the French blog on the American presidential elections to see the video)

The controversy goes on and people start wondering about Obama's candidacy. Listen to what Mitt Romney, one of the former Republican candidates for the nomination had to say for instance : 

Dan Schnur, a former advisor in John McCain's 2000 campaign, has just published an excellent commentary on Barack Obama's remark. This is an excellent analysis of the underlying assumptions that inform comments on the seemingly non-strategic support of the Republican Party by blue-collar workers.

This is basically how Dan Schurn's argument runs : 

Left-wing commentators have often presented the fact that the white working class usually voted for the Republicans as something that needs explaining : Republican economic policies are most often not going to better their plight so why do they vote against their "class interest"? Why does middle America make their choice on social issues such as abortion, gun rights and same-sex mariage? For the Democrats this choice makes no sense. 

Are they being lured into voting on those issues instead of on health care and economic policies by manipulative Republican demagogues? Or is it because, unbeknownst to the Democrats and the educated elite, people really care about these issues and are not obsessed with their economic hardships? Are the Democrats being so blinded by their liberal bias that they forget to question their own values and only try rationalise the values of others. 

The full article is really worth reading and appears to me as the best commentary on what the "bittergate" reveals about the Democrats.