Obama expresses regret for remarks on small towns

(Via LA Times.)

Facing an outcry from Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain, Barack Obama expressed regret Saturday for saying that small-town Americans embittered by job losses cling to religion, guns and hostility toward immigrants to explain their frustrations.

Obama’s move underscored the political damage wrought by his remark last weekend at a San Francisco fundraiser. Clinton, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, made it the focus of her campaign Saturday.

Trying to drive a wedge between Obama and working-class Democrats in states with upcoming primaries, Clinton’s campaign also deployed an army of surrogates to echo her condemnation of the Illinois senator. Among them were the mayors of Scranton, Bethlehem and several other cities in Pennsylvania, where the Democratic contest is nine days away.

Campaigning in Indiana, Clinton said she “was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Sen. Obama made about people in small-town America.”

“Sen. Obama’s remarks are elitist and they are out of touch,” she told a crowd in Indianapolis.

Full story here.