Clinton attacks Obama for remarks, he says he erred

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton kept the heat on U.S. presidential rival Barack Obama on Saturday for his comments about small-town Pennsylvanians, as Obama backtracked, saying he erred in describing their mood.

The day after Obama's remarks about small-town bitterness over job losses ignited a campaign-trail furor, Clinton said the comments were elitist, divisive and did not reflect the values of Americans.

"I don't think it helps to divide our country into one America that is enlightened and one that is not," Clinton, a New York senator, said while campaigning in Indiana. "If you want to be the president of all Americans, you need to respect all Americans."

Obama said he did not use correct language in describing the anger and frustration small-town residents feel about the struggling economy and the failure of government to help them.

"I didn't say it as well as I should have," Obama, an Illinois senator, said in Muncie, Indiana.

"But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to. And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families," he said.

Obama touched off the controversy with his remarks at a closed San Francisco fundraiser earlier in the week. The remarks became public on Friday.

"You go into some of 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," Obama said.