by Mark Silva

“Yeah baby…. All right,’’ the bar crowd calls out.

And Hillary Clinton takes a shot – more of a sip, really – from the shotglass of whisky handed to her over a bar in Indiana, where the senator from New York shows she is in touch with the working class.

Clinton is taking campaign shot after shot at Obama for his reported remarks about the bitterness of working class voters. And Obama did his best Sunday night to explain himself, in the Compassion Forum sponsored by Faith in Public Life at Messiah College, as not out-of-touch, but rather in touch with what is troubling many voters.

“My words may have been clumsy, which happens surprisingly often on a presidential camapign, ‘’ Obama said. “But this is something that I have talked about before…. Religion is a bulwark, a foundation, when other things aren’t going well. That’s true in my own life, through trials and tribulations….

“What I was referring to was in no way demeaning a faith that I myself embrace. What I was saying is that when economic hardship hits in these communities, what people have is, they’ve got family, they’ve got their faith, they’ve got the traditions that have been passed on to them from generation after generation… Those aren’t bad things… That’s what they have left…. Unfortunately, what people have become bitter about… is any confidence that the government is listening to them.’’