Obama’s ‘bitter’ remarks gives Clinton new shot

The mayor of Sharon, Pa., said he couldn’t believe what Barack Obama said.

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.

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.”

Campaigning in Muncie, Ind., Obama addressed the issue. “I didn’t say it as well as I should have,” he said at Ball State University.

As he tried to quell the furor, presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton hit Obama with one of her lengthiest and most pointed criticisms to date.

At issue are comments Obama made privately at a fundraiser in San Francisco last Sunday. He explained his troubles winning over 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 on the Huffington Post political Web site Friday, set off a storm of criticism from Clinton, Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain and other GOP officials. It threatened to highlight an Obama weakness — the image that the Harvard-trained lawyer is arrogant and aloof.

His campaign scrambled to defuse possible damage.

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 the university. “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.”

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 more troubling stories such as former President Clinton’s recent revisiting of his wife’s misstatements about an airport landing in Bosnia 10 years ago.

Clinton supporter Mayor Robert Lucas of Sharon, Pa., said, “When I first heard this this morning when I got up on the Internet, I couldn’t believe that Sen. Obama said it. ... I can tell you that I’ve lived in Pennsylvania all of my life, Western Pennsylvania – the furthest thing from the truth is that we are bitter. To say that we cling to our religion and guns because of that – I can’t understand that. In this small city of 15,000, we have over 35 churches. Those churches weren’t built because we’re bitter, and we don’t go to church because we are bitter.”

We’re concerned that seven years of Bush has really hurt us. And we’ve experienced a lot of job losses,” Lucas continued. Obama “spent a lot of time in this state of ours, and for him to say that — I don’t know, maybe he’s planning on, ‘Well that’s why he lost Pennsylvania. Because we’re bitter people.’”

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.