Clinton Seizes on Obama Remarks to Question His Appeal to Working Class

More spin. And a hardball approach: this is ammunition the Republicans will use all autumn to attack the Democratic nominee. She is going to make sure he is severely wounded, and if he happens to win the nomination, to carry the wounds into November.

Get a load of this crock: the Senator from New York has criticized the remarks with zeal, saying Mr. Obama is trying to divide the country between “those who are enlightened and those who are not.”

Isn't that her own gaffe? She's saying those that Obama criticized as bitter aren't enlightened. What crap.

Republicans also seized on the comments to portray Mr. Obama as an elitist who does not understand middle-class Americans, a sign of how they will define him if he becomes the nominee.

O, they will do anything and everything to wound him, including using Clinton's attacks on him. Such as this one: Mrs. Clinton raised the matter at several stops in Indiana on Saturday. She said Mr. Obama’s comments were “not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans,” adding that “Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it’s a constitutional right; Americans who believe in God believe it’s a matter of personal faith.”

So now the Senator from New York supports gun rights. Oy. And her supporter, Senator Bayh from Indiana, piles on.

“They’re going to say that we’re weak on national security, that we’re a bunch of high taxers and spenders, and out here in the middle of the country we don’t understand people’s values,” Mr. Bayh said. “The question is, have we given them some hook they can hang their hat on to make that argument?”

Tax and spend? And what about Clinton? She has never seen an issue she isn't willing to have a commission study and a few billion thrown at.

J. Richard Gray, the mayor of Lancaster and an Obama supporter, said that this is not what Mr. Obama meant. In his view, Mr. Obama was trying to say that Republicans take emotional matters like guns and religion and try to use them to divide people. “I don’t think he’s demeaning religion or guns,” Mr. Gray said. “He’s saying the use of those issues as wedge issues plays on the bitterness that people have and diverts attention from the real economic issues, like the disparity between the wage earner and the rich.”

Exactly.

Mr. Gray also said Mr. Obama was right that voters are bitter, although he said he would have used the word angry. He pointed to a recent poll that found 81 percent of voters believe the country is on the wrong track. He said that Mrs. Clinton sounded like “a Pollyanna” in saying that workers were optimistic. “I don’t know who she’s been talking to,” Mr. Gray said.

Her pollster and Bubba, I'd say.

Justin Taylor, 30, the mayor of Carbondale, Pa., has not declared a preference for president. But he said he was leaning toward Mr. Obama and his remarks about small-town voters would not dissuade him. “People are bitter and at the end of their rope,” he said. Referring to Mr. Obama’s comments, he said, “I don’t believe it is a problem.”