Monday, April 14, 2008

Obama fights back in Steelton remarks

Calls 'bitter' flap divisive

By CHRIS A. COUROGEN

Sen. Barack Obama went on the offensive Sunday night in Steelton, accusing his political opponents of distorting his recent remarks about the mood of the working-class electorate.

Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, and Obama's rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton, spent much of the weekend attacking Obama for his comments that small-town Pennsylvanians "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."

Obama refused to back down Sunday night, defending the statements to the crowd of several hundred union members gathered at the I.W. Abel Hall. He admitted, though, that he might have chosen the words he spoke at a San Francisco fundraiser more carefully.

"The words I chose, I chose badly. They were subject to misinterpretation. They were subject to being twisted," Obama said.

Such twisting and manipulation was just politics as usual, "politics of division and distraction," Obama told the crowd.

"I expected some of this out of John McCain," Obama said. "I am a little disappointed when I start hearing the exact same talking points coming out of my democratic colleague, Hillary Clinton. She knows better. She knows better. Shame on her."

Obama and Clinton were also asked about the comments later Sunday night at Messiah College's Compassion Forum broadcast live by CNN.

Clinton used the comments to go after Obama.

"Senator Obama has not owned up to what he said and taken accountability for it," Clinton told reporters during an informal news conference in Scranton.

"What people are looking for is an explanation. What does he really believe? How does he see people here in this neighborhood, throughout Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, other places in our country?"

Analysts said the words are likely to hurt Obama with working-class voters and allow his political opponents, Democratic and Republican, to portray him as a snob.

"A lot of Pennsylvania Democrats have grown leery, or skeptical, that the rest of the Democratic Party understands their values and lives," said Daniel Shea, a political scientist at Allegheny College. "It feeds the broader concern that the national Democratic Party is elitist. This is not a one-day story. It has legs."

Obama said the frustration, anger and bitterness he talked about is the result of years of politics as usual. He pointed to lost jobs, lost pensions and lost health care -- all themes popular with his audience, which was made up of members of seven labor unions.

"Every four years we get politicians coming before you and they say the same things. They say they are going to fight for you. They say they are going to bring the jobs back. They say they are going to get health care done, and they say they are going to make trade deals fair," he said.

"You guys have been hearing it forever, and things haven't changed," Obama said. "Of course you are frustrated about that. Of course you are angry abut that. Of course you are bitter about that."

He also attacked Clinton for her ties to lobbyists and support of the North American Free Trade Agreement during her husband's two terms as president.

Obama's message resonated with those in the crowd.

"They are playing politics, or politricks, I call them," said Kathy Jellison, president of Local 668 of the Service Employees International Union.

"I think we are all frustrated," Jellison said. "We see people lose their jobs every day, lose their pensions every day, lose their health care. We are bitter."

The wire services contributed to this report. CHRIS A. COUROGEN: 255-8112 or ccourogen@patriot-news.com