By Shailagh Murray and Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 13, 2008 9:49 PM

GRANTHAM, Pa., April 13 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) asserted Sunday night that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), through his recent description of sentiments in small-town America, reinforced a stereotype of "out-of-touch" Democrats that doomed the party's last two presidential nominees.

"We had two very good men, and men of faith, run for president in 2000 and 2004. But large segments of the electorate concluded that they did not really understand or relate to or frankly respect their ways of life," Clinton said at Messiah College last night, referring to former vice president Al Gore and Sen. John F. Kerry. She repeated her view that Obama had been "elitist . . . and frankly patronizing."

Her remarks came in a nationally televised forum on religious and moral values, held at the private Christian school here, just outside of Harrisburg.

Obama had already fielded two days of such criticism from Clinton, after he told San Francisco Democrats last week about working-class voters in small towns, "It's not surprising that 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."

And it was clear Sunday that Obama had heard enough. He fired back Sunday in a union hall in Steelton, Pa., saying he expected such an attack from Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee, but not from a fellow Democrat.

"She knows better. Shame on her. Shame on her," Obama said. "She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsman, how she values the Second Amendment. She's talking like she's Annie Oakley," Obama said, invoking the famed Wild West female sharpshooter.

"Hillary Clinton is out there like she's on the duck blind every Sunday," he continued. "She's packing a six-shooter. Come on, she knows better. That's some politics being played by Hillary Clinton."

Obama suggested Saturday that he had phrased his comments clumsily.

The uproar threatened to overshadow the Democrats' participation in Sunday night's forum, which was organized by the nonpartisan group Faith in Public Life. The two candidates sat separately for more than 30 minutes each of questions from journalists and religious leaders. McCain was invited as well but declined to take part.

Clinton declined repeatedly to describe her personal faith and how it informed specific decisions, citing "the way I was raised" and implying that she kept such matters to herself. Asked why there is suffering, if there was a God, she said, "I can't wait to ask Him. I have just pondered it endlessly."

Earlier, while campaigning in Scranton, Pa., Clinton hammered Obama in comments that seemed targeted at uncommitted Democratic superdelegates.

"His comments were elitist and divisive, and the Democratic Party has been unfortunately viewed by many people over the last decade as being elitist and out of touch. We have waged elections over that," Clinton said at a news conference.

Her campaign hastily arranged for her to go door-to-door for 30 minutes in Scranton, a small city in northeast Pennsylvania where Clinton has now stopped three times over the last month to stump, never forgetting to remind voters that her father grew up there.

Clinton seemed frustrated when a reporter turned the issue towards her, asking when she had last attended church or fired a gun.

"That is not a relevant question for this debate," Clinton said. "We can answer that some other time. I went to church on Easter, so . . . but that is not what this is about. This is about how people look at the Democratic Party and the Democratic leadership. We have been working very hard to make it clear we have millions of Democrats who are churchgoing or gun-owning and we are tired of having Republicans, or having our own Democrats, give any ammunition to the Republicans."

Pressed on whether she had seen "bitterness" on the campaign trail about illegal immigration or free trade, she continued to tear into Obama.

"You don't have to psychoanalyze or patronize people to conclude we have problems," Clinton said. "Of course we have problems. After seven years of George Bush, how could we not? . . . It's also unfortunate that, since the beginning of his campaign, Senator Obama has consistently denigrated and criticized the Clinton administration, the last successful two-term Democratic president. I frankly think people in Pennsylvania believe they were a lot better off when Bill Clinton was president than they are now."

Obama has suggested that Bill Clinton's administration was a time of intense partisan battles in Washington, and he has criticized free trade agreements promoted by the president.

Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), an Obama supporter, said of people in his state, "They're not going to judge him by one statement."

"He understands why some people could be offended by those words," Casey added on CNN's "Late Edition." "But here's the larger point: He was trying to express the frustration that people feel, not only with this economy but what's been happening in Washington."