Michelle wades into 'bitter' debate

CAMPAIGN 2008 | Obama's wife has mocking tone for critics

HAVERFORD, PA. -- "There's a lot of people talking about elitism and all of that," said Michelle Obama on Tuesday, wading into the controversy over whether her husband's remarks at a San Francisco fund-raiser were patronizing.

The Obama campaign is scrambling to limit the damage from Sen. Barack Obama's biggest gaffe since he started running for president. So far, polls show no dents, but the campaign is concerned that may only be because people don't know about it yet but will, given that Sen. Hillary Clinton is running with the opening Obama gave her.

Facing an April 22 primary, Obama could not have picked a worse state to be mired in for days in a controversy he ignited by talking about "bitter" blue-collar Pennsylvanians who "cling" to guns, God and anti-immigrant and anti-trade "sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has so many hunters, parts of the state close schools the day deer season opens.

"Maybe things are better and I'm just missing the boat," said Michelle Obama at Haverford College, in one of Philadelphia's posh Mainline suburbs, never directly mentioning the jam of Obama's making.

But the audience knew what she was talking about because Michelle Obama was applauded when she said she saw the world not through the lenses of her schools, Princeton and Harvard, but of her hardscrabble youth on Chicago's South Side. "Maybe I'm out of touch," she said in a sort of mocking tone.

On Monday, the Clinton campaign went up with an ad where a woman is saying, "I was very insulted by Barack Obama" followed by a man who says, "It just shows how out of touch Barack Obama is."

The Obama campaign--which had been focusing as portraying Clinton as a tool of lobbyists in direct mail pieces -- decided to go on the air Tuesday with a spot seeking to respond to Clinton's hit. The spot features tape of Clinton getting jeered on Monday when she started hitting Obama for his "bitter" remarks.

In Levittown, a working-class Philadelphia suburb, James Downey, 62, a lawyer was getting a $13 haircut at Bob's Barber Shop & Hair Styling. He said he was open to voting for Obama before he heard about the "bitter" comment and now he is for Clinton. "I felt that crack was elitist and inappropriate," he said. "That I go to church on Sunday doesn't make me disgruntled."