The thing about Obama is that he doesn't use phrases that many of us expect. Maybe it's because he thinks about politics differently than most candidates that he doesn't use labels. But after listening to his resounding reply to the other camps criticizing his remarks about small town voters it's apparent that sometimes the expected phrase could be helpful.
In this case the expected phrase is:
Single Issue Voters
We've heard about them over the last decades. And yes, it's the voter's on both sides of the abortion debate (religion) and the NRA and let's add automatic weapons in there too. Don't forget Ruby Ridge and Waco if you're a 2nd amendment voter. This year in November it's likely to be the Iraq war issue. This is what Obama was talking about when people cling to their guns or cling to their religion or blame other races for taking their jobs away.
Obama, in his retort specifically said that people can't trust the government when it comes to the economics. What he meant wasn't the macro economics that sent the stock market to such soaring hieghts despite that little dip called the mortgage crisis. Bill Clinton ran marathons by apealling to one issue votors - the issue being "It's the Economy, stupid". But the economy issue is so big it's not really a one-issue issue.
So what happened is that voting for the Economy candidate didn't get small town America anything. Lots of jobs were created, but they always talk about the # of jobs, not the salary of the jobs, or the geography of the jobs. So for those who took the chance and stoped voting for one those close to the vest single issues and stepped out and voted for the whole shoot'n'bang economy felt used. Everybody around us is moving on up but not a thing has moved our way.
So Obama is appealing to former single-issue voters that it's time to take the chance again. And we've found out that his original comments were given to volunteers headed to PA and wondering what objections they might find in convincing small town voters to vote for Barack. So he told them (however inelegantly) that they would likely find people who had been single-issue voters and that it would take some work to help them feel that Obama wouldn't let them down when it came to family economics.
It's time to stop being Single-issue. That sounds like all of his nuanced positions where for the lack of a better summary all come down to "look at the bigger picture". The guy is consistent.