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Presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain's (Ariz.) campaign continued to pile on Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) "small-town" gaffe Monday by using the flashpoint remarks in a fundraising e-mail. Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, urged supporters to contribute to McCain to help stop Obama and his "elitist" views from getting elected. McCain and Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) have seized on Obama's remarks in San Francisco earlier this month. Obama told a group there that small-town Americans are bitter because of sustained job losses, and that 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 has said he misspoke. "Barack Obama's belief that small-town Americans are 'bitter' exemplifies the differences in this election," Davis wrote. "We cannot allow this elitist philosophy to make its way into the White House." Obama has consistently bested both his Democratic and Republican rivals in fundraising. Clinton’s campaign also continued to criticize Obama over the remarks. Geoff Garin, Clinton's new senior strategist, took a shot at Obama’s remarks in an introductory e-mail to Clinton supporters. "The voters in Pennsylvania know that she is the candidate who understands their lives and respects their values, and that every day she will be a president who stands up for them instead of looking down on them," Garin wrote. At a union forum in Pittsburgh Monday, Clinton brought up Obama's remarks. “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,” Clinton said. The Obama campaign has responded that McCain and Clinton are the candidates truly out of touch with American voters, but a new poll out Monday morning underscores how potentially problematic Obama's remarks might be. An American Research Group (ARG) poll from April 11-13 shows Obama's numbers in a free-fall in Pennsylvania, where he trailed Clinton 57 percent to 37, according to the poll. The same poll from April 5-6 showed the two Democrats tied at 45 percent. |
