Obama seeks to explain ‘guns or religion’ remark

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, known for his skills as an orator, conceded today that comments he made at a private San Francisco fundraiser about working-class Democrats clinging to “guns or religion” were poorly chosen.

“I didn’t say it as well as I should have,” he said. “But what is absolutely true is that people don’t feel like they are being listened to. And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families.”

Seeking to defuse the damage among blue-collar Democrats essential to his chances in upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania and Indiana, Obama told a crowd in Muncie, Ind., that he only meant to show empathy.

“Lately, there’s been a little typical sort of 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. “They are angry, they feel like they’ve been left behind. They feel like nobody’s paying attention to what they’re going through.”

The controversy – fanned by rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain – began when the Huffington Post website published remarks the Illinois senator made last weekend at a closed-door San Francisco fundraiser.

In those comments, Obama responded to a question about why his candidacy was struggling in Pennsylvania by saying that residents of some hard-pressed communities had grown bitter.

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” Obama said. “And 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.”

Fellow Democrat Clinton, campaigning in Pennsylvania ahead of the state’s April 22 primary, seized on the remarks, suggesting that Obama was offering condescension rather than solutions. “Pennsylvania doesn’t need a president who looks down on them,” the New York senator said at a Philadelphia rally. “They need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them.”

Responding today to Obama’s concession that his words were ill chosen, the New York senator continued her attack. “Sen. Obama’s remarks are elitist and out of touch,” she said. “They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans. Certainly not the Americans that I know.” She added, “If you want to be the president of all Americans, you need to respect all Americans.”

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, co-chair of Clinton’s national campaign, continued the drumbeat in a conference call with reporters and several offended Pennsylvania mayors. “He suggests that people are bitter. I think they are frustrated,” said Vilsack. “I think they are anxious because eight years of the Bush economy has not done what it needs to do. What they want is not a pat on the head from a presidential candidate; they want a pat on the back.”

A strategist for Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) also joined in the criticism. “Instead of apologizing to small-town Americans for dismissing their values, Barack Obama arrogantly tried to spin his way out of his outrageous San Francisco remarks,” said campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. “You can’t be more out of touch than that.”

mark.barabak@latimes.com