MUNCIE, Ind — Barack Obama didn’t back off his argument that blue collar, small town Pennsylvanians are bitter over their economic lot in life — but acknowledged that he could have phrased it more artfully.

“When you’re bitter, you turn to what you can count on,” he said at a Town Hall Meeting on the last day of his 3-day Indiana bus tour. “So people, they vote about guns. Or they take comfort from their faith, and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming into this country. Or they get frustrated about, you know, how things have changed. That’s a natural response.”

“And I didn’t say it as well as I should have, because the truth is these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That’s what sustains us. But what is absolutely true is that people want to feel like they’re being listened to.”

Obama called the controversy over his remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser last week “a typical sort of political flare-up,” but didn’t do much to keep the fight going. His response today ignored Hillary Clinton’s and John McCain’s attacks on him as “out of touch” — unlike in his indignant turn in Terre Haute last night.

Instead, Obama steered the flap back to his trademark — a more hopeful brand of politics. “What we need is a government that is actually paying attention. A government that is fighting for working people day in and day out, making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream,” he said. “That’s what this campaign is about.”

TERRE HAUTE, Ind — Rather than back off his claim at a San Francisco fundraiser that working class Pennsylvania voters are bitter and “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to the people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” Barack Obama passionately embraced those remarks tonight — saying “of course they’re bitter. Of course they’re frustrated. You would be too. In fact, many of you are.”

Obama expanded on his San Francisco argument, saying 30 years of unfulfilled economic promises from politicians led voters to latch onto other issues. “They don’t vote on economics because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them,” he said. “Some people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, are they gonna have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. They take refuge in their faith and their families and the things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington.”

Getting warmed up, Obama lit into his rivals and their attacks. “Here’s what’s rich,” he said. “Senator Clinton says, ‘well, I don’t think people are bitter in Pennsylvania. I think Barack’s being condescending.’ John McCain says, ‘oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter. He’s obviously out of touch with people.’”

“Out of touch? Out of touch?” he said, incredulous.

“I mean, John McCain, it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem, and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch?

“Senator Clinton voted for a credit card sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I’m out of touch?”

“No, I’m in touch. I know exactly what’s going on, I know what’s going on in Pennsylvania, I know what’s going on in Indiana, I know what’s going on in Illinois. People are fed up. They’re angry, and they’re frustrated, and they’re bitter, and they want to see a change in Washington, and that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.”

His rivals wasted no time in attacking Barack Obama for comments made at a San Francisco fundraiser last weekend, and newly reported on the Huffington Post, in which he seemed to disparage working class people in Pennsylvania and across the Midwest — as Hillary Clinton and John McCain’s campaign both called Obama “out of touch” just minutes after the remarks came to light.

Talking about small rust belt towns that are still run down despite promises of renewal from Bush and Clinton administrations, Obama told the crowd “it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to the people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

But in a statement, the Obama campaign ignored the controversial portion of his remarks about God, Guns, and Xenophobia — defending instead his widely accepted claim that people in the rust belt have had it pretty rough for the last few decades. Spokesman Tommy Vietor released a statement saying “Senator Obama has said many times in this campaign that Americans are understandably upset with their leaders in Washington for saying anything to win elections while failing to stand up to the special interests and fight for an economic agenda that will bring jobs and opportunity back to struggling communities.”

Vietor ignored Clinton’s attacks altogether, but lashed out at John McCain’s campaign for calling Obama out of touch — saying “if John McCain wants a debate about who’s out of touch with the American people, we can start by talking about the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans that he once said offended his conscience but now wants to make permanent.”

Of course, when McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt said Obama’s remarks showed “an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking,” he was talking about the ones that the campaign’s statement ignored.

UPDATE: The Obama campaign urges reporters to look at the remarks in context. You can read the transcript provided by the Huffington Post after the jump.

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Philadelphia, PA– Sen. Hillary Clinton jabbed her Democratic rival today for comments he made last week in which he argued that “small town” Americans turn to guns, religion and xenophobia as a result of hard economic times.

“It’s being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are bitter. Well that’s not my experience,” Clinton said during a town hall meeting at Drexel University Friday. “As I travel around Pennsylvania, I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive, who are rolling up their sleeves. They’re working hard everyday for a better future, for themselves and their children. Pennsylvanians don’t need a President who looks down on them, who fights for them, who works for your futures, your jobs, your families.”

Obama reportedly made the comments at San Francisco fundraiser last Sunday according to a report on the Huffington Post web site.

He reportedly said: “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…and they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they 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.” No comment as of yet from the Obama campaign.

The McCain campaign also immediately chimed in on the Obama comments today.

“It is a remarkable statement and extremely revealing,” said McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt. “It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking. It is hard to imagine someone running for President who is more out of touch with average Americans.”

Schmidt continued: “This statement demonstrates that he will have great difficulty connecting because it’s clear he holds the people he’s describing with some measure of contempt. The condescension and elitism inherent in the statement is remarkable. The notion that because people are in a tough economy, that’s why they go to church, thats why they have guns, that’s why they’re anti -immigrant–it is a remarkable series of condescensions towards the heart and soul of this country. The people who live in small town America and I think people will resent it and be very angry about it because that is not how most Americans view themselves.”

((With reporting from Bonney Kapp in Lubbock, TX))

UPDATE: FNC’s Aaron Bruns reports the first Obama campaign semi-response: “Senator Obama has said many times in this campaign that Americans are understandably upset with their leaders in Washington for saying anything to win elections while failing to stand up to the special interests and fight for an economic agenda that will bring jobs and opportunity back to struggling communities. And if John McCain wants a debate about who’s out of touch with the American people, we can start by talking about the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans that he once said offended his conscience but now wants to make permanent,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

Just days after the Wall Street Journal reported that he’d met with the Colombian government to discuss how his PR firm could help pass a free trade deal with the United States that Senator Clinton opposes, Mark Penn is out as chief strategist of the Clinton Campaign.

In a statement, campaign manager Maggie Williams said “After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as Chief Strategist of the Clinton Campaign; Mark, and Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, Inc. will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign.”

“Geoff Garin and Howard Wolfson will coordinate the campaign’s strategic message team going forward.”

Sources within the campaign say “Senator Clinton was disappointed that the meeting with the Colombians had occurred. She is a strong opponent of the trade deal. As Mark indicated in his apology on Friday, he knew that the meeting was a mistake.”

“Over the course of the weekend, he recognized that he needed to step aside as chief strategist and Senator Clinton agreed. He will continue to provide polling and advice as part of the team.”

Penn, a controversial and little liked figure within the campaign, was behind much of the campaign’s message - including emphasizing her toughness and the “strength and experience” theme. He’d long clashed with others in the campaign who wanted to emphasize Hillary’s human qualities.

Hillary Clinton made her first trip to Oregon, speaking to a packed high school gym just outside of Portland. While they acknowledge that her rival Barack Obama is favored here, the Clinton campaign is playing hard — naming a state director and what the campaign calls a “very active” steering committee, ramping up field staff and opening a state headquarters in Portland next week and satellite offices in every congressional district.

They’re also tailoring their strategy around Oregon’s unique mail-in primary system; ballots will be mailed out on April 28th, and the majority of voters are expected to submit ballots through the post.

“I’m here to meet with you and talk with you and hopefully make my case to you,” she told the voters of Hillsboro, OR. “This is my first trip in a campaign of firsts, and I’m glad to be able to blaze a home in the land of the Trailblazers.”

But even in the Beaver State, she was focused on Michigan and Florida. She’s long argued that their delegates should count, but today she claimed their popular votes should count as well — a move that would put her much closer to Obama in that metric.

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Memphis, TN — In an exclusive interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, Sen. John McCain said Friday that he will be meeting with U.S. Secret Service officials next week and intends to take on a detail in the coming weeks, “if not earlier.”

“I think that it’s important as we get more and more visibility–that we recognize the inevitable. And so we will be talking with them early (next week) to arrange for very soon, some Secret Service protection,” McCain said on Fox News Sunday, adding that he has not requested a detail until now because “it inhibits my ability to have close contact with people.”

The news comes one day after the Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told a House Appropriations Subcommittee that McCain is the only major Presidential candidate who has declined Secret Service protection. Sens. Clinton and Obama both travel with Secret Service details.

Wallace’s full interview with the presumptive GOP nominee will be aired on Fox News Sunday this weekend.

Barack Obama addressed an AFL-CIO conference this morning in Philadelphia, just one day after Senator Clinton spoke at the same forum. Yesterday Senator Clinton was introduced to the theme song from the 1976 movie Rocky (Obama opted for his usual “City of Blinding Lights” by U2) and used the Rocky analogy in her speech.

“Well, could you imagine if Rocky Balboa had gotten half way up those Art Museum steps and said, ‘Well, I guess that’s about far enough?’ Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing the fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people,” Clinton told the union members.

Today in response, Senator Obama said to those same union members, “I know there’s been some talk about Rocky Balboa over the last couple days. And you know, we all love Rocky.” The audience laughed. “The last time I checked, I was the underdog in this state,” he continued. Obama has consistently polled behind Senator Clinton here in the Keystone State, sometimes by as much as double digits.

And giving Clinton a reality check, Obama added, “We’ve got to remember that Rocky was a movie.”

It is just a movie, of course, but it should be noted that in the work of fiction, Rocky ends up losing the final bout in a split decision to his rival, Apollo Creed.

At a New Hampshire town hall meeting back in January, before John McCain was the presumptive Republican nominee or even the Republican frontrunner, he made comments that are still making waves on the campaign trail. A Granite State voter started to say that President Bush said we could be in Iraq for 50 years when McCain interrupted. Democrats seemingly limitless ammunition in their quest to win over anti-war voter

“Maybe 100,” he said. “We’ve been in South Korea, we’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it’s fine with me. I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping, and motivating people every single day,” he continued.

This statement has been used ever since by Democrats in their quest to win over the anti-war vote that makes up much of the Democratic Party’s base.

Senator Obama consistently incorporates McCain’s “hundred year war” into his stump. Today in Lancaster, PA, he mentioned it twice. “You know, John McCain wants to continue a war in Iraq perhaps as long as 100 years,” he told voters at his town hall meeting. He reinforces this by telling voters that he was against the war in 2002 and will end the war in 2009.

For the past couple of days, the McCain camp has sent out releases claiming Obama is “being dishonest when he claims that John McCain has plans for 100 years of warfare in Iraq, it’s not true, and has been repeatedly reported as false. It’s easy to talk about taking on Washington, but when Senator Barack Obama consistently uses Washington’s oldest political tricks and distortions, i smacks of some hypocrisy,” a spokesman said.

Today at a press avail, Senator Obama was asked if he is being unfair, as suggested by the McCain campaign. “I don’t think it’s unfair at all. John McCain, I mean we can run the youtube spot, has said that we will stay there as long as it takes and if it takes another 100 years he’s up for that commitment, and that implies that there is some criteria by which we would understand how long it takes. John McCain has not been clear about what exactly would lead him to decide its time to pullout,” he said in Lititz, PA.

The reporter followed up that even Barack Obama has said he would keep a strike force in Iraq, and troops to guard the embassy and its diplomats. “That’s very different from saying that we’re gonna have a permanent occupation in Iraq,” Obama retorted. “And it’s certainly different from saying that we would have a high level of combat troops inside Iraq for a decade or two decades or as John McCain said, perhaps 100 years. I mean I’m just quoting back what he said, unless you tell me that that’s a misquote.”

When the reporter suggested perhaps McCain had meant he would leave troops in Iraq in the spirit of Germany and Japan, Obama replied, “We’ve been in South Korea for for 50 years and he’s used that as an example as George Bush has, and that is decades. We’re spending 10 billion dollars a month in Iraq right now. Which means that John McCain is willing to sign up for the prospect of spending as much as $150 billion or more each year for who knows how long. That is something that the US cant afford and I think that is going to be a debate we are going to have in the general election should I be the nominee.”

Don’t expect Obama to drop this line from his stump anytime soon.

Denver, CO — John McCain commented–ever so briefly–on the Jeremiah Wright/Barack Obama controversy at a Thursday media availability.

Asked whether a candidate should be held accountable for the views of his pastor, McCain would say only that “knowing Senator Obama..he does not share the extreme views..that I saw on television.”

McCain was on a week-long trip abroad while the Wright debate was broiling and had yet to comment on the issue since returning to the states. While some Republican officials have expressed privately that Obama’s association with the controversial pastor could pay some political dividends in the fall, McCain campaign officials say they intend to keep the upcoming general election debate centered around policy rather than personal issues.

Two polls out this week by Pew and the Wall Street Journal both show that the Wright controversy has done little damage to Obama’s support.