PITTSBURGH—U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spent a fourth day Monday defending himself for calling people in small towns with economic blight "bitter" in a controversy that rival Hillary Clinton is trying to use for a comeback.
Republican John McCain sought political gain from the flap, saying it is the people from small towns in America who survived the Great Depression, fought in World War Two and built a strong postwar economy who are the "heart and soul of this country."
Speaking to steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Obama vowed to get tough on China for its "dumping" of cheap products into the U.S. market but said some U.S. jobs lost to foreign trade are gone forever.
Yet again he was forced to address comments he made at a private fundraiser last week that became public on Friday, in which the Illinois senator said economic problems had led voters in some small towns to become "bitter" and "cling to guns or religion."
Both McCain, and the Democrat Clinton, who is vying with Obama to face McCain in the November presidential election, have pounced on the remarks to charge that Obama is elitist and out of touch with the concerns of Americans.
For Clinton, Obama's remarks have been a gift she needed badly to try to revive her struggling bid to overtake Obama's lead in the state-by-state contest for the Democratic nomination, with tests coming in Pennsylvania on April 22 and Indiana and North Carolina on May 6.
"Now it may be that I chose my words badly. It wasn't the first time and it won't be the last. But when I hear my opponents, both of whom have spent decades in Washington, saying I'm out of touch, it's time to cut through their rhetoric and look at the reality," Obama said.
Whisky and Chaser
He also mocked Clinton for an event at an Indiana bar on Saturday in which she drank a shot of whisky and chased it with a beer.
"Around election time, the candidates can't do enough for you. They'll promise you anything, give you a long list of proposals and they'll even come around, with TV crews in tow, to throw back a shot and a beer," he said.
In response, the Clinton campaign circulated an e-mail including photographs of Obama at similar events, such as feeding a baby cow with a milk bottle and bowling.
Clinton, speaking later to the same steelworkers, tried to keep the controversy alive.
"I don't think he really gets it that people are looking for a president who stands up for you and not looks down on you," she said.
But there was some resistance from the mostly union crowd, which included Obama supporters. Some murmured disagreement and said "no, no" when Clinton attacked Obama and remarked they were probably as disappointed by the comments as she was.
Still, an American Research Group poll conducted over the weekend showed Clinton with a 20-point lead over Obama in Pennsylvania, 57 percent to 37 percent. Previous polls had showed a closer contest in the state.
Arizona Sen. McCain, speaking to the Associated Press' annual meeting in Washington, came out as the defender of small-town Americans, saying Obama had misread them.
Religious faith, he said, "had given generations of their families purpose and meaning, as it does today. And their appreciation of traditions like hunting was based in nothing other than their contribution to the enjoyment of life."
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