Clinton Releases Tough New Anti-Obama Ad in Pennsylvania

Keeping up her pounding on Sen. Barack Obama for his "bitter" remark a week ago, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton finally launched an ad off the event -- and it is arguably her toughest so far in the campaign.

The 30-second spot, running here in Pennsylvania, features her supporters describing their unease over a comment that has become the focal point (this week, anyway) of the Democratic race.

"Barack Obama said that people in small towns 'cling to guns or religion ... as a way to explain their frustrations,'" an announcer says in the new ad.

"I was very insulted by Barack Obama," one woman says on camera. "It just shows how out of touch Barack Obama is," a male voter follows up.

"I'm not clinging to my faith out of frustration and bitterness. I find that my faith is very uplifting," a second woman says.

"The good people of Pennsylvania deserve a lot better than what Barack Obama said," follows a second man.

The spot closes with a slightly happier message, with the first woman saying: "Hillary does understand the citizens of Pennsylvania better." A third woman finishes: "Hillary Clinton has been fighting for people like us her whole life."

Clinton made a splash with her "3 a.m." ad before the Texas and Ohio primaries, but the attack in that case was implicit (i.e. that Obama was not ready to answer the national security batphone in the middle of the night).

This one is direct, and -- featuring people who appear to be working-class voters -- aimed at his demographic Achilles heel rather than his resume.

Obama's Flaws Multiply

Barack Obama's San Francisco-Democrat comment last week – about how alienated working-class voters "cling to guns or religion" – is already famous.

But the fact that his aides tell reporters he is privately bewildered that anybody took offense is even more remarkable.

Democrats have been worrying about defending Mr. Obama's highly liberal voting record in a general election.

Now they need to fret that he makes too many mistakes, from ignoring the Rev. Wright time bomb until the videotapes blew up in front of him, to his careless condescension towards salt-of-the-earth Democrats.

Mr. Obama has a tendency to make such cultural miscues. Speaking to small-town voters in Iowa last year, he asked, "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?"
[Barack Obama]

Mr. Obama is the closest thing to a rookie candidate on the national stage since Dwight Eisenhower, who was a beloved war leader.

Candidates as green as Mr. Obama make first-timer mistakes under the searing scrutiny of a national campaign.

Even seasoned pols don't understand how unforgiving that scrutiny can be. Ask John Kerry, who had won five statewide elections before running for president.

For all his winning ways and natural appeal to the camera, Mr. Obama hasn't really been tested in a major campaign.

In 2000, then-state Sen. Obama challenged Congressman Bobby Rush, who was vulnerable after having been crushed in a bid to become mayor of Chicago. Mr. Rush, a former Black Panther, painted Mr. Obama as "inauthentic" and beat him 2-1.

New poll shows Barack Obama tanking in Pennsylvania

The first fresh poll results from Pennsylvania are in since Barack Obama's "bitter" comments about people in small towns exploded as a news story, and the findings could hardly be worse for the Democratic presidential contender.

Intriguingly, the man in charge of the survey said interviews with voters indicate Obama's tumble in the state has more to do with what the candidate himself has said were ill-chosen words than anything else.

The new poll by American Research Group -- conducted Friday, Saturday and Sunday -- gave Clinton 57% and Obama 37% (based on interviews with 600 Democrats, the survey has an error margin of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points).

The 20-point margin is all the more dramatic because, just the week before, an ARG poll found the pair in a flat-out tie in Pennsylvania, each with 45%.

The previous findings had put the race closer than any others. And perhaps the new one exaggerates the bounce Clinton has gotten from the storm over Obama's remarks at a San Francisco fund-raiser.

Other pollsters are in the field in Pennsylvania, and we eagerly await their results (an L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll of Democrats in the Keystone State -- as well as in North Carolina and Indiana -- will be ready mid-week).

Regardless, the New Hamphire-based ARG poll, may have identified a tactical worry for the Obama camp above and beyond the current controversy.

Dick Bennett, head of the poll, told us today that even before the furor erupted, it appeared many Pennsylvania Democrats began to turn against Obama because they are simply sick and tired of seeing and hearing his ads.

Much as campaign consultants would be loath to agree, Bennett opined that a candidate "can spend too much money" on an ad campaign, and the saturation of Obama spots ...

in Pennsylvania appear to be a classic example of "overkill" that ultimately does harm.

Bennett also reported that some of the Pennsylvanians who his company contacted went on to complain about the substance of the ubiquitous Obama ads.

They are "about him, not voters or what their concerns are," Bennett said. And Obama's comment on attitudes in small towns served to reinforce that feeling.

Clinton strolls for Pennsylvania blue-collar votes

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took a stroll on Sunday, but the crowds lining the sidewalks and jamming the porches of a blue-collar neighborhood in Pennsylvania made it anything but casual.

Clinton, eager to show her rapport with small-town voters in a less structured campaign setting, went door-to-door on a Scranton street to talk with supporters -- trailed every step of the way by a crush of media, Secret Service agents and sport-utility vehicles from her motorcade.

"I need your help," Clinton told supporters who crowded the sidewalk and shouted for her attention as she posed for pictures and signed autographs.

The walk, repeated later in the day in a suburb of Philadelphia, was designed to offer a contrast with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama amid the furor over his comments describing small-town residents as embittered by their economic struggles.

The controversy could boost Clinton's chances in Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22 and is the next battleground in her duel with Obama to be the Democratic nominee to face Republican John McCain in November's presidential election.

The state is dotted with small blue-collar towns like Scranton, where Clinton's father grew up.

The New York senator, who along with her husband former President Bill Clinton earned $109 million in the last eight years, has pushed to capitalize on the furor by emphasizing her middle-class upbringing.

A crowd of several hundred people lined the street in Scranton to see Clinton. One resident held a sign that read "Small Towns Need You."

"You're doing a good job," Cynthia Catalano assured Clinton when she greeted her on the porch of her parents' house. Her parents, Accursio and Francesca Leo, also chatted with Clinton.

"We're proud to be in Pennsylvania and we'd love to see her win here," Catalano said afterward.

A man who said he was a Republican and a fan of conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh told Clinton he supported her because he needed health insurance and thought she could get universal coverage approved.

"I'll do my best for you," Clinton told the man, who would not give his name to reporters.

"I just think she's the best person for the job," said Esther Hallock, a cook in Scranton who wished Clinton good luck.

'MIDDLE CLASS VALUES'

The Scranton walk was the latest in a series of events focused on appealing to workers and blue-collar voters that Clinton has conducted since the controversy over Obama's comments erupted on Friday.

She ended a round of tours of manufacturing plants in Indiana on Saturday with a stop in a restaurant, where she talked with patrons and drank a beer and a shot of Crown Royal whisky with two local mayors.

Clinton said her wealth did not change her values.

"Bill and I have worked very hard in our lives and I'm very grateful for the successes we have had," she told reporters in Scranton.

"We're very appreciative of the opportunities we've been given but we don't take anything for granted. My family instilled in me middle class values and I think those are the heart and soul of the American experience," she said.