by Scott Kraus
PHILADELPHIA– For most of the day yesterday, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama hammered each other over Obama’s remarks about small town voters being “bitter,” but both took a bit of a break from the skirmish Monday night before a crowd of Democratic party activists in Philadelphia.
Clinton avoided the issue entirely in her speech to the Philadelphia Democratic Committee’s annual $150-a-plate fundraiser, attended mostly by block leaders of the city’s ward-based political apparatus.
Obama waded briefly into the controversy near the end of his remarks, saying that he is in touch with voters who are struggling to pay their bills and make ends meet, linking their anger to his long running theme of “hope.”
“Sometimes hope and anger go hand in hand,” Obama said. “You’ve got to be angry about your circumstances to bring about change. But you need hope to make change happen.”
Obama addressed the crowd about an hour-and-a-half later after Clinton, giving a compressed version of his stump speech, touting his opposition to the war in Iraq which he said “never should have been waged,” and talking about the need to fix the nation’s economic woes.
Clinton touted her experience and stands on issues like health care and ending the war in Iraq.
“Ask yourself who you would like to hire for the hardest job in America?” Clinton said in brief remarks, insisting that the increasingly tense battle for the nomination would be good for the party in the long run.
The only time rural, blue collar voters came up was when speakers blared John Mellencamp’s “Small Town” on Clinton’s way out the door.The crowd at the Jefferson Jackson dinner, held at the Sheet Metal Workers Union hall on Columbus Blvd., seemed most interested in schmoozing, but they appeared more enthusiastic about Obama, who polls have suggested will do well in the city.
Gov. Ed Rendell, who introduced Clinton, said in an interview before the event that he thinks that the uproar over Obama’s remarks about small town voters will cost him a “couple of points at the most,” and that the increasingly bitter primary contest will likely go the distance.
“It depends on the next nine elections that are after this,” Rendell said.
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And, in an effort to set expectations, he said he’d consider a 6 percent to 7 percent victory by Clinton in Pennsylvania a “landslide.” Clinton held a double digit lead in the days following the Ohio primary in March, and polls had shown the margin shrinking prior to Obama’s remarks.
Introducing Obama, retired Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Harris Wofford told the crowd not to believe the political “spin” that has surrounded his remarks.
“No candidate in a long time has been in better touch with the residents of this commonwealth,” Wofford said.
For most of the day Monday, the two candidates sparred over Obama’s remarks– made last week at a San Francisco fundraiser—that suggested small town voters “cling” to guns and religion because they are disillusioned with politicians’ broken promises to improve their local economy.
“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,” Obama said.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized the comments as “elitist and divisive,” while Obama has chided her for playing politics with the remarks, and mocked the New York senator’s own recent emphasis on support for gun owners’ rights.
“She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment. She’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley,” Obama said.
The Clinton campaign acted quickly to exploit Obama’s gaffe, putting out a new 30-second television ad Monday night, featuring men and women who say they feel insulted by his comments and that Clinton, not Obama understands state voters’ sentiments.
Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting Sen. John McCain also joined the fray Monday, criticizing Obama’s comments at the Associated Press annual meeting in Washington D.C.
“I think those comments are elitist,” he said. “I think anybody who disparages anyone who is hardworking, the dedicated people who cherish the right to hunt and observe their values and the culture and say that’s because they are unhappy with their economic conditions, I think that’s a fundamental contradiction to what I think America is.”
Clinton supporter Joseph Hoeffel, Democratic Montgomery County commissioner, said he had heard negative comments about Obama’s remarks in his suburban county, and said they would probably hurt Obama.
Hoeffel said Obama’s comments were “poorly phrased’ and “made him seem he is an elitist.” Nonetheless, he said he thinks there’s a limit to the amount of time that should be spent talking about them.
“I think the campaigns on both sides need to return to the issues,” Hoeffel said.