She's talking like she's Annie Oakley.

-- Barack Obama (on Hillary's sudden commitment to the Second Amendment.)

It is no understatement to say that if uncontained, Obama's remarks threaten the ethos of the Democratic Party, and of liberalism itself.

There's a lot of scrambling, with liberals -- especially Clinton supporters -- trying to sound like populists. Here's Reverend Bubba:

"One more time, the campaign opposite Hillary said, 'Well there really wasn't any difference in the Clinton years and the Bush years. Rural Pennsylvania really didn't do very well.' Do you agree with that?" he asked the crowd, which responded with jeers. Smiling broadly, Clinton continued: "I just thought I'd get a few witnesses here. You know I'm a Baptist. On Sunday, we look for witnesses."

But will the wealthy, well-educated Democrats (the ones whose support is necessary to fund campaign in the fall) be willing to throw Barack Obama to the wolves? That depends on the direction of the spin. Right now it's a bit too early to tell. If Team Obama can shake this, that's one thing, but they're in a tough spot, as they can't easily slough it off as mainstream Democratic thinking, and hence there's a major effort to explain the remarks "in context." For Team Hillary, the goal is to simply deny that the remarks are true, but avoid grappling with the fact that many of the Democratic intelligentsia agree with them. Thus, it is no accident that most of the "explanations" avoid looking at the one context which is the most important in analyzing any piece of discourse, and which is absolutely vital here.

The audience.

Without knowing the audience, it's nearly impossible to determine the context of a statement. No serious political candidate with even the most rudimentary rhetorical skills would imagine that he could give the same speech to a group of military veterans that he would give at a peace rally, and vice versa. Similarly, what might be said at an organization of business entrepreneurs would bomb at a union rally.

Why isn't more being said by the left about Obama's audience? It isn't as if the homework hadn't already been done for them. Well before these remarks broke, Zombietime did a great job of examining the attendees in detail. It's a hilarious post, and anyone who wants to understand the mindset of the rich San Francisco liberals who flocked to the Getty Mansion fundaiser need look no further. (Zombietime has audio too.)

I think the problem is that the Democrats need two things: as many votes from the bitter little flyover people who cling to God and guns as they can hoodwink them into delivering, and as much of the rich wealthy money as they can squeeze out of the types who attended the event covered by Zombietime.

By exposing the mindset of the latter, Obama's remarks are thus a much bigger threat to the Democrats' lifeblood than many analysts realize.

Which means that they may have to turn on him in order to redeem themselves. Yeah, I know it's more denial than redemption, but surely they can't be expected to admit that Obama the chameleon was only telling them what they wanted to hear so that they'd reach for the checkbooks, can they?

Needless to say, I'm not happy about this, because as I've said before, if Hillary can come from below and beat Obama, she will beat McCain. Middle America loves an underdog, especially an underdog from the "middle."

Yes, "middle" belongs in quotes, because whether Annie Hillary is really in the middle is about as "relevant" as the last time she fired a gun or went to church.

Hillary's "guns" have to be seen in context.

UPDATE: Speaking of context, Frank J. reports an additional remark by Barack Obama that never saw the light of day in the MSM:

"See, all I have to do is get those jobless crackers jealous of people with more money, and they'll forget everything I said. Stupid honkeys."

MORE: Commenter Al Maviva raises an interesting point:

what's the difference between [Obama's] position, and a cosmopolitican libertarian's position?