US:BARACK OBAMA has hit back at his presidential rivals over his description of small-town Americans as "bitter", describing Republican John McCain as out of touch and accusing Hillary Clinton of double talk over free trade.
With a new poll suggesting that the controversy over Mr Obama's remarks has given Mrs Clinton a 20-point bounce in Pennsylvania, the Illinois senator admitted that he had chosen his words badly.
Addressing the Alliance for American Manufacturing in Pittsburgh, he poked fun at Mrs Clinton for posing in an Indiana bar at the weekend, where she drank whiskey and beer. "Around election time, the candidates can't do enough for you. They'll promise you anything, give you a long list of proposals and even come around, with TV crews in tow, to throw back a shot and a beer," he said.
Mr Obama said Mrs Clinton's opposition to trade deals during the campaign was at odds with her earlier support for the North America Free Trade Agreement and the lobbying work her former chief strategist, Mark Penn, did on behalf of a Columbian trade deal.
"You can't say you are opposed to the Colombia trade deal, while your key strategist is working for the Colombian government to get the deal passed. That's not respect. That's just more of the same old Washington politics. And we can't afford more of the same," he said.
Mr Obama has been on the defensive since last Friday over the release of an audiotape of a fundraiser in San Francisco, during which he said that voters in Pennsylvania small towns were embittered by economic hardship. "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," he said.
Mrs Clinton and Mr McCain condemned the remarks as elitist but Mr Obama yesterday told the annual meeting of the Associated Press in Washington that he was describing real anger among working-class Americans.
"If John McCain wants to turn this election into a contest about which party is out of touch with the struggles and the hopes of working America, that's a debate I'm happy to have. In fact, I think that's a debate we need to have. Because I believe that the real insult to the millions of hard-working Americans out there would be a continuation of the economic agenda that has dominated Washington for far too long."
Addressing the Pittsburgh manufacturing conference yesterday, Mrs Clinton was heckled briefly when she returned to the attack over Mr Obama's comments.
"I believe that people don't cling to religion, they value their faith. You don't cling to guns, you enjoy hunting or collecting or sport shooting," she said.
"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."