Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are doing a delicate dance with voters in Pennsylvania, a state with nearly 1 million licensed hunters and a staggering urban gun-crime rate.
In a state where the largest city, Philadelphia, has so many gun murders that it’s been dubbed “Killadelphia,” there are also 250,000 members of the National Rifle Association – and the Legislature just defeated a bill aimed at tracing stolen guns.
Navigating the politics of guns leading up to next Tuesday’s Democratic primary has become tough for both Clinton and Obama, who are trying to play to both sides in a primary with a patchwork demographic.
Clinton, who was noted for supporting gun-control measures in 2000 when she first ran for Senate, hasn’t taken a stand on a case before a major Second Amendment case involving a handgun ban before the Supreme Court.
Neither has Obama, who supported stricter gun measures when he was an Illinois state senator. They’ve talked about certain prerequisites for gun owners, but not about removing people’s weapons outright.
But both will likely face questions on the topic of guns when they face off at a debate in Philadelphia tonight.
The issue also comes as Obama has sought to defuse the flap over his comment that “bitter” working-class folks in small towns “cling” to “guns or religion.”
Among the developments yesterday:
* A new Quinnipiac University poll of the state showed the “bitter” business had barely dented Obama’s numbers – with him getting 44 percent to Clinton’s 50 percent.
The polling was conducted from April 9 through 13, meaning it included two days of coverage of the comments – which Clinton and GOP candidate John McCain have been hammering as “out of touch” and “elitist.”
A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll taken from April 10 to 14 found a similar margin, with Clinton getting 46 percent and Obama getting 41 percent. In Indiana, which votes May 6, Clinton was trailing Obama by five points.
* Mayor Bloomberg did a phone interview with The Huffington Post and appeared to rap Obama, saying it was “stretching it to think there is an economic component to how people vote on [guns]. This is an issue that they have voted the same way for a long time, through good times and bad times. It’s not like people have to defend themselves against a higher rate of crime when the economy is lower.”
A Bloomberg spokesman later insisted the mayor meant the argument is focusing on the wrong things.
* At a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, Obama – who has said he regrets his word choice but not his sentiment about economic frustration – said, “I am amused about this notion of elitist.”
He pointed to his bona fides as a non-elitist, noting he was raised by a single mom who at one point used food stamps – and that he himself went to college on student loans.
* Clearly feeling they have found the narrative thread to frame Obama with voters, McCain’s campaign told reporters they will keep pounding on the “bitter” comments.
It opens “a window on how Barack Obama views the people of this country,” strategist Steve Schmidt told reporters. With Post Wire Services