John McCain and Hillary Clinton are stunned and flabbergasted that Barack Obama would imply that Pennsylvanians are bitter over, say, thirty years of economic decline in their local communities. McCain and Clinton are deeply baffled and hurt by the following words Senator Obama spoke at a recent fundraiser:

I think it's fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government.... Because everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work -- don't wanna vote for the black guy.' That's...there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it's sort of a race thing.

Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter)....

But the truth is ... our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that 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.

....[Y]ou can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're doing what you're doing.

According to the Senator's critics, these statements are a sign that he is "elitist" and "out of touch." Senator Obama notes that he might have said things better. Maybe so. I leave it to others to determine the political consequences of this current dispute. However unpalatable some may find the Senator's comments, I do know one thing: What he said has considerable validity. My only quibble with his original remarks was that he made them in California. These should be presented straight-up to engage and challenge Pennsylvania voters.

I would love to see Obama get up and challenge people, to say:

Yes, many of you are getting screwed by economic changes over the past generation. We all know that. Many of you are bitter, and have good reason to be. Many of you have understandably lost faith in Washington.

I can't promise that I can reverse everything about the economy that has hammered this region. It goes a lot deeper than the fine print in some trade deal or who said what to some lobbyist--though these things do matter and I'll change some of that if I am elected President. We all know that, too. I have some ideas I believe will help you: to reduce your taxes, to prevent mortgage foreclosures, to make sure that you have the health care you need, to help your kid pay for college.

I promise to campaign hard across this state, to bowl badly, hunt with lower casualties than Dick Chaney, mispronounce the name of every Polish sausage. I owe you that sweat investment, to show that I will work for your vote and learn about your problems. But you have a choice to make. You can support a realistic progressive Democratic platform, or you can listen to a bunch of people who want you to write me off as an elitist based on a bunch of BS cultural issues that don't have much to do with what I will do as President, and which won't improve your lives or your families' lives.

Robert Kennedy said rather similar things four decades ago when he challenged many rural Indiana voters. As I recall, RFK did pretty well when the votes were counted.

The faux outrage expressed by Senators McCain and Clinton calls to mind the emotional torment suffered 16 years ago by then-Senator, now McCain backer, Al D'Amato. Ordinarily known for his salty demeaner, D'Amato pretended to cry when his hapless opponent Robert Abrams made a clumsy remark that could be construed as anti-Italian.

Here is what Barack Obama's actually said in response to recent criticisms. :

I was in San Francisco talking to a group at a fundraiser and somebody asked how're you going to get votes in Pennsylvania? What's going on there? We hear that's its hard for some working class people to get behind you're campaign. I said, "Well look, they're frustrated and for good reason. Because for the last 25 years they've seen jobs shipped overseas. They've seen their economies collapse. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their pensions. They have lost their healthcare.

And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said we're going to make your community better. We're going to make it right and nothing ever happens. And of course they're bitter. Of course they're frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you. And so people end up- they don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody's going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington. So I made this statement-- so, here's what rich. Senator Clinton says 'No, I don't think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack's being condescending.' John McCain says, 'Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he's obviously out of touch with people.'

Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain--it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he's saying I'm out of touch? Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I'm out of touch? No, I'm in touch. I know exactly what's going on. I know what's going on in Pennsylvania. I know what's going on in Indiana. I know what's going on in Illinois. People are fed-up. They're angry and they're frustrated and they're bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that's why I'm running for President of the United States of America.

Unlike (Hillary) Clinton and John McCain, Barack Obama is a man who came out of nowhere, from very modest means, to challenge for our nation's highest office. He is not a centimillionaire like his two principal opponents. He's experienced many of the problems rural Pennsylvanians are up against. Hard-pressed voters may not agree with everything Obama says. I think many will respect the long road he has taken and his candor in addressing a few elephants in the room operating in the current primary.

Damn right they're bitter; they have good reasons to be. And most of those reasons are the economic and trade policies that have - and continue to be - championed by George Bush and John McCain.

The McCain campaign is managed by a cadre of Washington-insider special interest lobbyists. He and his current wife are estimated to be worth about $100 million. He reportedly owns eight houses. His let-them-eat-cake economic policies are based on George Bush's failed radical conservative "you're on your own buddy" philosophy. One after another he supported trade agreements that protect the rights of corporations, but ignore the rights of labor, and have devastated one Pennsylvania community after another. He gets most of his campaign cash from the wealthiest corporate interests around. And he has the gall to call Barack Obama an "elitist"?

This is the same Barack Obama who spent years of his life organizing out-of-work steelworkers on the south side of Chicago - people just like those who live in Allentown or Erie or Pittsburgh or the Monongehela Valley in western Pennsylvania. He stood shoulder to shoulder with them, sat at their kitchen tables, spent hours in their church basements.

He didn't do those things as a famous candidate, but as a community organizer being paid $8,000 a year by a coalition of churches. You don't build a resume or a client list organizing unemployed steel workers. You do it because you respect the people and you care about justice.

In fact, the trademark of Barack Obama's campaign for president is the honest, respectful way he talks to everyone -- and stands up for everyday Americans.

If you want to talk about patronizing, or "elitism", you need look no farther than the way Bush and McCain attempt to use fear and division to divert the attention of middle class people from the economic policies that pick their pockets, lower their wages, destroy their unions, and outsource their jobs. And all the while they use our money to bail out Wall Street, and give giant tax breaks to the real "elitists" -- the economic elite.

It is Barack Obama who can lead a movement to change the way things are done in Washington. He can do it by empowering and inspiring the people who live in small-town Pennsylvania, and all of the other middle class Americans who have been left out by Bush-McCain policies that have benefited the "masters of the universe" on Wall Street and the Gucci-shoed lobbyist set on "K" Street.

As for Hillary Clinton, who joined in attacking Obama's statement: she should know better. She knows that Obama is the furthest thing from an elitist, and she should know better than to join in the Republican narrative about the candidate who is the likely Democratic standard bearer in the fall.

Obama's Remarks Gives Clinton an Opening

Apr 12, 6:51 PM (ET)

By JIM KUHNHENN and CHARLES BABINGTON

MISHAWAKA, Ind. (AP) - A political tempest over Barack Obama's comments about bitter voters in small towns has given rival Hillary Rodham Clinton a new opening to court working class Democrats 10 days before Pennsylvanians hold a primary that she must win to keep her presidential campaign alive.

Obama tried to quell the furor Saturday, explaining his remarks while also conceding he had chosen his words poorly.

"If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that," Obama said in an interview with the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal.

But the Clinton campaign fueled the controversy in every place and every way it could, hoping charges that Obama is elitist and arrogant will resonate with the swing voters the candidates are vying for not only in Pennsylvania, but in upcoming primaries in Indiana and North Carolina as well.

Political insiders differed on whether Obama's comments, which came to light Friday, would become a full-blown political disaster that could prompt party leaders to try to steer the nomination to Clinton even though Obama has more pledged delegates. Clinton supporters were eagerly hoping so.

They handed out "I'm not bitter" stickers in North Carolina, and held a conference call of Pennsylvania mayors to denounce the Illinois senator. In Indiana, Clinton did the work herself, telling plant workers in Indianapolis that Obama's comments were "elitist and out of touch."

At issue are comments he made privately at a fundraiser in San Francisco last Sunday. He was trying to explain his troubles winning over some working-class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions:

"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."

The comments, posted Friday on The Huffington Post Web site, set off a blast of criticism from Clinton, Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain and other GOP officials, and drew attention to a potential Obama weakness - the image some have that the Harvard-trained lawyer is arrogant and aloof.

There has been a small "political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois, who are bitter," Obama said Saturday morning at a town hall-style meeting at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. "They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through.

"So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country."

After acknowledging his previous remarks in California could have been better phrased, he added:

"The truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That's what sustains us. But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to."

(AP) Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., greets employees as she makes...

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Clinton attacked Obama's remarks much more harshly Saturday than she had the night before, calling them "demeaning." Her aides feel Obama has given them a big opening, pulling the spotlight away from troublesome stories such as former President Clinton's recent revisiting of his wife's misstatements about an airport landing in Bosnia 10 years ago.

Obama is trying to focus attention narrowly on his remarks, arguing there's no question that some working-class families are anxious and bitter. The Clinton campaign is parsing every word, focusing on what Obama said about religion, guns, immigration and trade.

Clinton hit all those themes in lengthy comments to manufacturing workers in Indianapolis.

"The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich," she said.

"I also disagree with Senator Obama's assertion that people in this country 'cling to guns' and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration," Clinton added.

"People don't need a president who looks down on them," she said. "They need a president who stands up for them."

McCain's campaign piled on Obama, releasing a statement that also accused him of elitism.

One of Clinton's staunchest supporters, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., acknowledged there was some truth in Obama's remarks. But he said Republicans would use them against him anyway.

At a campaign rally in Wilson, N.C., former state Democratic Party chairman and current Clinton adviser Tom Hendrickson said rural voters don't need "liberal elites" telling them what to believe.

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama tried to quell a political furor on Saturday over his comments about small-town Pennsylvanians, saying he used the wrong words to describe their mood.

Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate John McCain kept the heat on the Illinois senator for his comments that small-town residents were bitter over job losses and turned in frustration to religion, guns and anti-immigrant sentiments.

Clinton, campaigning in Indiana before the state's May 6 contest, said the comments were elitist, divisive and out of touch and did not reflect the values of Americans she met.

"I don't think it helps to divide our country into one America that is enlightened and one that is not," Clinton, a New York senator, said in Indianapolis. "If you want to be the president of all Americans, you need to respect all Americans."

Obama said he did not use the right language to describe the anger and frustration small-town residents feel about the struggling economy and the failure of government to help them.

"I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois, who are bitter," Obama said in Muncie, Indiana.

"So I said well you know when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community," he said.

"Now, I didn't say it as well as I should have."

In an interview with the Winston-Salem Journal, Obama said, "If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that.

"The underlying truth of what I said remains, which is simply that people who have seen their way of life upended because of economic distress are frustrated and rightfully so," he was quoted as saying.

Obama touched off the controversy with his remarks at a closed San Francisco fundraiser earlier in the week. The remarks became public on Friday.

He said jobs had been disappearing in small towns in Pennsylvania and across the Midwest for 25 years with nothing to replace them.

"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," he said.

FOCUS ON PENNSYLVANIA

The furor could threaten Obama's chances in Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22, the next big showdown in his fight with Clinton for the Democratic nomination to face McCain in November's presidential election.

Clinton once enjoyed a big lead in Pennsylvania polls but that has dwindled to about 4 to 6 points in a state that has struggled from job losses and has a large number of the blue-collar voters who have been Clinton's biggest backers.

Both Democratic candidates have campaigned for the support of working-class families battling a shaky job market and a home foreclosure crisis.

Clinton visited a transmission assembly plant in Indianapolis that supplies U.S. tanks to talk about her plans to rejuvenate defense industries. She later took a tour and met with employees of a plant in Mishawaka, Indiana, that manufactures Humvees for the military.

Obama's comments "are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans," she said.

"Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor but because they are spiritually rich."

The Obama campaign accused Clinton of supporting special interests that leave common workers behind.

"We won't be lectured on being out of touch by Sen. Clinton, who believes lobbyists represent real people and is awash in their money," said Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan.

Obama also came under fire from McCain's campaign.

"Barack Obama's elitism allows him to believe that the American traditions that have contributed to the identity and greatness of this country are actually just frustrations and bitterness," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said.

Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, a Clinton supporter, said the controversy could hurt Obama's effort to win over superdelegates, the Democratic Party insiders who are free to back any candidate at the August nominating convention and could decide the race.

Obama leads Clinton in pledged delegates won in state contests, but neither is likely to reach the 2,024 needed for nomination without support of the nearly 800 superdelegates.

"It's a real potential political problem and it's something for superdelegates and voters to think about," Bayh said.

"We have to win the election in November and the far right wing has a real good track record of using things like this against our candidates," he said.

Clinton Misstates Wife's Bosnia Tale

 Apr 11, 5:49 PM (ET)

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former President Clinton has added to the falsehoods surrounding his wife's tale of her trip to Bosnia 12 years ago. In Indiana on Thursday, Bill Clinton defended his wife's mistake in claiming that she landed under sniper fire in Bosnia, accusing the media of treating her like "she'd robbed a bank" for confusing the facts.

The New York senator had repeatedly described a harrowing scene in Tuzla, Bosnia, in which she and her daughter, Chelsea, had to run for cover as soon as they landed for a visit in 1996. Video footage of the day instead showed a peaceful reception in which an 8-year-old girl greeted the first lady.

Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that she got the facts wrong in retelling the tale. Bill Clinton's inaccuracies don't involve long-ago memories, but misstatements about how his wife has handled the story.

THE SPIN:

 "A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me," Bill Clinton said in Boonville, Ind. "But there was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995.

"Did y'all see all that? Oh, they blew it up," the former president continued. "Let me just tell you. The president of Bosnia and Gen. Wesley Clark - who was there making peace where we'd lost three peacekeepers who had to ride on a dangerous mountain road because it was too dangerous to go the regular, safe way - both defended her because they pointed out that when her plane landed in Bosnia, she had to go up to the bulletproof part of the plane, in the front. Everybody else had to put their flak jackets underneath the seat in case they got shot at. And everywhere they went they were covered by Apache helicopters. So they just abbreviated the arrival ceremony.

"Now I say that because what really has mattered is that even then she was interested in our troops," he said. "And I think she was the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone. And you would of thought, you know, that she'd robbed a bank the way they all carried on about this. And some of them when they're 60 they'll forget something when they're tired at 11 o'clock at night, too."

THE FACTS:

Bill Clinton has many of the facts wrong.

His wife didn't make the sniper fire claim "one time late at night when she was exhausted." She actually told the story several times, including during prepared remarks on foreign policy delivered the morning of March 17.

It's also not true that she "immediately apologized for it." Clinton has never apologized for the comments and only acknowledged that she "misspoke" a week after the March 17 speech when video of her peaceful tarmac reception emerged.

It's also not true that she was the "first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone" - a claim that Hillary Clinton has also made when talking about the trip. Pat Nixon traveled to Saigon during the Vietnam war and Barbara Bush went to Saudi Arabia two months before the launching of Desert Storm.

The trip also was not in 1995, but 1996.

Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer responded to the former president's remarks Friday by saying, "Senator Clinton appreciates her husband standing up for her, but this was her mistake and she takes responsibility for it."

She's also told her husband to quit talking about it.

"I'm a big fan of accessories," she said after mentioning the outfit
of Mayor Pro Tem Vivian Burke. "I'm married to one.

Elton John: 'To hell with them'

There's a real crowd at Radio City, complete with scalpers, and lines around the block for Elton John and the Clintons.

Toward the back of one line: Frank Luntz, Lanny Davis, and Doug Schoen. ("I used to be in business with Mark Penn," Schoen joked.)

Inside, Bill Clinton introduced his wife, thanked the packed house for contributions to keep the race going, and asked for more, to shouts of "We miss you, Bill."

"If you know anybody who didn’t come here tonight who could send some money over the Internet …," he said.

"What I want you to know is, I’m still standing,"  Hillary told the crowd. I believe that this country is worth fighting for, so we’re talking our campaign to Pennsylvania and to all the states that haven’t voted."