In a hastily organized conference call with reporters, supporters of Barack Obama today defended the senator's controversial remarks in which he characterized residents of small towns as "bitter" at economic hardships they faced by shifting focus to the underlying principle they say Obama was addressing. "I don't think I would agree, or I would use the same words," said Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray. "I would use the word that people are angry. ... It's a very thin surface that you have to scratch beneath to find this anger."

"It's not surprising [that people] 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," Obama said at the fundraiser. "So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington." On Saturday, Axelrod attempted a clarification. "When things are going badly, people hold to the things that are important to them, and sustain them, and certainly faith is one -- he's a person of deep faith. Traditions are another," Axelrod said.

Top strategist David Axelrod said Obama had chosen his words poorly, but the sentiment was important to understand. "He made it very clear that he regrets the remarks," Axelrod said. "He was sorry for the offense that anybody took from them, and I think he understands why they might." But several small-town mayors said no apology was necessary. "It's not patronizing. It's not condescending. It's not elitism," said Braddock Mayor John Fetterman.

Since the comments, made at a San Francisco fundraiser last weekend, Obama has been hit hard by both his remaining rivals. "Senator Obama's remarks are elitist and out of touch," Clinton said at a rally in Indiana, while her new top strategists, pollster Geoff Garin, told TPM's Greg Sargent the comments "will be damaging." Indiana Senator Evan Bayh told reporters that the comments should be taken into account by super delegates who have yet to make up their mind about whom to support, while former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, a former small-town mayor himself, called the comments "condescending and disappointing."

In his own statement, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds characterized Obama's reaction to the firestorm as arrogant. "Only an elitist who attributes religious faith and gun ownership to bitterness would think that tax cuts for the rich include families who make $75,000 per year. Only an elitist would say that people vote their values only out of frustration," Bounds said. "Barack Obama thinks he knows your hopes and fears better than you do. You can't be more out of touch than that."

Staffers at the Republican National Committee pushed the remarks around to reporters and bloggers, while the National Republican Congressional Committee issued press releases calling on twenty-five targeted Democratic members of Congress to repudiate Obama's remarks. "Americans don't want liberal politicians like Barack Obama who believe Washington is a substitute for faith, personal responsibility and belief that the Constitution guarantees our freedoms," NRCC communications director Karen Hanretty said in the statements.

Axelrod and others on the campaign's afternoon conference call lashed out at rivals' attacks, saying that Clinton's especially strain credibility. On the economy, trade and other issues of import to rural voters, Obama's "position has been wholly consistent over the years and that's not something Senator Clinton can claim." While Obama spoke of some rural voters' anger, Axelrod said, "Both Senator McCain and Senator Clinton seem to deny that, and it makes you wonder whether they're reading from the Washington playbook," he said.

"There is a real anger in many of our communities in this country." "We need hope," Fetterman said, not someone who is "fabricating sniper stories." Clinton's and McCain's reaction "showed someone out of touch with what's going on in our communities," Gray said. "That was more patronizing than the statements by Senator Obama."