But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of 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. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. 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.

1. To hold fast or adhere to something, as by grasping, sticking, embracing, or entwining: clung to the rope to keep from falling; fabrics that cling to the body.
2. To remain close; resist separation: We clung together in the storm.
3. To remain emotionally attached; hold on: clinging to outdated customs.

So I think that the rise of this is sort of crystallized for a lot of people, that I think doubling healthcare premiums has had a lot to do with this -- the further loss of health insurance coverage in America. So there's a lot of economic anxiety.

In the Republican Party, it expresses itself as this sort of very hard line against immigration. In the Democratic Party, it expresses itself in a very hard line against trade. But the real problem is we haven't created enough good new jobs.

"Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith," she said, to periodic applause. "People of faith I know don't cling to religion because they are bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor but because they are spiritually rich."

On the issue of guns, Clinton said: "People of all walks of life hunt, and they enjoy doing do because its an important part of their life, not because they are bitter."

“I think you’re on dangerous ground when you morph that into suggesting that people’s cultural values, whether its religion or hunting and fishing or concerns about trade, are premised solely upon those of kind of anxieties and don’t have a legitimate foundation independent of them,” Bayh said.

"Working class people in all parts of America are frustrated, but they are not small-minded in the way that Senator Obama's comments conveyed," Garin said.

[...] When I suggested that Hillary's denunciation of Obama's comments as "elitist" and "out-of-touch" was overstated, and argued that Obama had merely made the "What's the Matter With Kansas" argument in a clumsy way, Garin said: "To say that people cling to their religion out of economic frustration couldn't be more out of touch."

Obama's elitist contempt for everyday people: "Barack Obama is once again showing his enmity for common people in small town America."

Typical White People AGAIN!: "he came out with a laundry list of sterotypes against the working class. Slurs which denigrate an entire culture. Obama doesn't get white people of a certain class."

I can't help wondering what John Edwards thinks about Barack Obama's slam of rural Americans.

Welcome to Bittergate!: "We all knew it would happen. Finally Obama would say something that would betray his arrogant condescension toward almost all other Americans in a way that was so heinous that even the Obamedia couldn’t cover it up."

Hillary says Obama is Elitist and Out of Touch: "Today Hillary went right after Obama for his demeaning remarks about small town hardworking Americans. [...] And then she hit him on religion. Because if there is one thing that we all know for certain, it is that Barack Obama’s religious beliefs and practices are not those of mainstream America. It’s no wonder he doesn’t understand us.

"I saw in the media it's being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are bitter. Well, that's not my experience," Clinton said. "As I travel around Pennsylvania, I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive, who are rolling up their sleeves. They are working hard everyday for a better future, for themselves and their children. Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them, they need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them, who works hard for your futures, your jobs, your families."

Clinton told an audience of automotive workers here that she was "taken aback by the demeaning remarks Sen. Obama made about people in small town America."

"Sen. Obama's remarks are elitist and out of touch," she said. "they are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans [...] I don't think it helps to divide our country into one America that is enlightened and one that is not," Clinton continued, finishing her remarks with a line she introduced on Friday in Philadelphia after the story broke: "People don't need a president who looks down on them.