As outrages over ill-chosen words go, "Bittergate" is decidedly minor. Obama's decision to apologize has to be based on more on a desire to avoid giving the Republicans a club to distort his views than on fear of a significant backlash in the Pennsylvania primary.
A generalization that should arose little dispute is that people vote for candidates on the basis of those issues they believe the candidates have the power to do something about. When unions were delivering annual pay increases far in excess of inflation, plus ever-expanding healthcare and other benefits, a much smaller percentage of people doubted that pursuing pro-union policies had a major impact on their lives than do today.
Similarly, when it looked likely to many that the U.S. could pass a constitutional amendment making abortions illegal, that possibility energized people on both sides of the issue.
Over time, more and more people come to recognize that the checks and balances of the American political system make significant change--good, bad, transformative, or merely disruptive--very difficult to achieve. This realization can lead to apathy or frustration.
The mass political involvement of modern political campaigns poses an incredible challege to candidates and prominent spokespersons for candidates. When political strategy is inherently participative for hundreds of thousands or millions of people, it is difficult to communicate with them without engaging the entire electorate as well.
The development of political strategy is inherently based on social science research, both public (articles, books, dissertations) and private (polls and memos citing various sources). But those who use social science data (in fields including, but hardly limited to political science, sociology, political psychology, economics, history, anthropology, marketing, etc.) run the risk of translating this data into ordinary communication.
One can say, for instance, that Dr. X, Dr. Y., and Dr. Z., in a a 2005 study of the political attitudes of 276 residents of industrial town Pennsylvania conducted in 2003 and 2004, found that 37%--a plurality--expressed bitterness at the failure of the American political system to adequately respond to their concerns.
But it is an intuitive leap to proclaim relevance of that study to current voting trends; the ability to make intuitive leaps, however, is one thing that can distinguish winners from also rans. That does not mean that intuitive leaps are either universally popular or universally accepted.
The American political figure who likely offended the most people with intuitive leaps from social science data was the Senator Hillary Clinton replaced, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Moynihan's generalizations based on social science data about welfare recipients and black family life were deeply offensive to many when widely publicized; also offensive was his leaked memo to President Nixon calling for "benign neglect" in racial issues.
I have learned that saying that some people have a problem or a view is far preferable to specifying who has a problem or a view.
I have learned that one should never pose as an expert on the motivation of others; each person has to be regarded as the leading expert on his or her own motivations.
I have learned, in short, to be wary of generalization, since generalizations, by definition, are true in some instances and false in other instances.
A key to Barack Obama's greatness as the premier political communicator of the 21st century--and likely one of the great political communicators in American history--is that he can state his views on political issues, and integrate his position with demonstrations of broad knowledge of the subject and the relevant historical context and receptiveness towards the ideas of others.
A high-level campaign is not an ordinary form of dialogue. It is a dialogue in which opponents eagerly look for reasons to be insulted, or to convince others that they have been insulted. It is a dialogue in which all too many people settle for avoiding the slings and arrows of others, and all too few people are able to express meaningful thoughts in persuasive ways.
Barack Obama has excelled as a campaign communicator so far, and will likely continue to excel as a campaign communicator in the future. "Bittergate" is ultimately a mild warning on the dangers of being too relaxed and unwary in front of a large group of supporters. No choice of candidates uniformly produces the same results in all groups of people, and Obama does not have to explain why all Americans do not prefer him over Clinton.