OBAMA, CLINTON TRADE TAUNTS OVER WHISKEY, BOWLING

Senator Obama is mocking Senator Clinton for drinking beer and downing a shot of whiskey during an unusual photo-op at an Indiana bar Saturday night. “Around election time, the candidates can’t do enough,” Mr. Obama said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “They’ll promise you anything. They’ll even give you a long list of proposals. They’ll even come around with TV crews in tow and throw back a shot and a beer,” Mr. Obama told a meeting of the American Alliance for Manufacturing in Pittsburgh yesterday.

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Phil Singer, turned the tables, accusing Mr. Obama of awkwardly seeking to burnish his working class credentials. “With all due respect, this is the same politician who spent six days posing for clichéd camera shots that included bowling gutterballs, walking around a sports bar, feeding a baby cow, and buying a ham at the Philly market (albeit one that cost $99.99 a pound),” the aide said.

The sparring stemmed from reports about comments Mr. Obama made suggesting that small-town Americans “bitter” about economic distress were seeking refuge in religion, gun rights advocacy, and anti-immigrant rhetoric. At the same manufacturing forum yesterday, Mrs. Clinton encountered some resistance as she tried to chide Mr. Obama over his statement. “I know that many of you, like me, were disappointed by the recent remarks he made,” she said, according to CNN. The network reported that a sizable contingent in the audience signaled disagreement by shouting, “No.”

MCCAIN CASTS OBAMA AS ELITIST

Senator McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, also weighed in on Senator Obama’s comments about small-town America. “I think those comments are elitist,” Mr. McCain told a meeting of newspaper editors in Washington. He also said previous generations of Americans facing adversity did not “turn to their religious faith and cultural traditions out of resentment and a feeling of powerlessness to affect the course of government or pursue prosperity. Their faith had given generations of their families purpose and meaning, as it does today. Their appreciation of traditions like hunting was based in nothing other than their contribution to the enjoyment of their lives.”

OBAMA CALLED ‘BOY’ BY REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN

A Republican congressman from Kentucky apologized yesterday after calling Senator Obama, who is of African descent, “boy.” At a fund-raising event on Saturday, Rep. Geoff Davis said he recently took part in a highly-classified national security exercise with Mr. Obama. “I’m going to tell you something: That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button,” Mr. Davis said, according to a Web log, PolWatcher. “He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country.”

In a letter to Mr. Obama yesterday, Mr. Davis apologized for what he called “a poor choice of words.”

“It’s hard to tell what is more outrageous — Representative Davis’ condescending and personal attack, or his absurd and offensive claim that Barack Obama is not prepared to defend America,” a spokesman for the senator from Illinois, William Burton, said yesterday before the apology was issued.

CLINTON RUNS ‘BITTER’ OBAMA AD, BUT RENDELL IS SKEPTICAL

Senator Clinton is deploying a new television ad in Pennsylvania to seize on Senator Obama’s statement about “bitter” small-town Americans. “I was very insulted by Barack Obama,” one unnamed woman says in the ad. “I’m not clinging to my faith out of frustration and bitterness. I find that my faith is very uplifting,” another woman says.

However, Mrs. Clinton’s most prominent supporter in the state, Governor Rendell, suggested last night that the average Pennsylvanian is not terribly outraged. According to Time magazine’s “The Page,” Mr. Rendell told reporters at a political dinner that the flap could cost Mr. Obama “one or two points at the margin” in the Keystone State vote a week from now. “But by the time November rolls around, I think this comment will be long forgotten,” the governor added.