FACTBOX: Obama under fire for remark on small town voters

(Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has come under fire for describing small-town voters in Pennsylvania as people who "cling to guns or religion" because they are "bitter" over job losses.

His rivals Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, and John McCain, a Republican, have seized on the comments, saying they show Obama is an elitist, with a condescending view of the middle class.

Obama later said he does believe voters are angry over job losses but his words were ill-chosen. "If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that," he told the Winston-Salem Journal newspaper.

Here is some background on the controversy and the impact it is having on the U.S. presidential race.

THE COMMENTS

"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," said Obama, an Illinois senator.

"And it's not surprising then 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 as a way to explain their frustrations."

WHERE AND WHEN HE SPOKE

Obama made the comments a week ago at a gathering of wealthy donors in San Francisco that was closed to the press.

He spoke in response to a question about whether he was having trouble courting working-class voters who have gravitated toward Clinton. A contributor at the fundraiser tape recorded the comments and posted them on the liberal Huffington Post blog on Friday.

WHY THE COMMENTS ARE CAUSING A STIR

The furor could threaten Obama's chances in Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22, the next big showdown in his fight with Clinton for the Democratic nomination to face likely Republican nominee McCain in November's presidential election.

White, working-class voters are a significant constituency in Pennsylvania. Polls show Clinton has had an edge with these voters though Obama has cut into her support.

In Pennsylvania, her lead has dwindled to around 6 percentage points from double digits a few weeks ago.

WILL THE LABEL OF "ELITIST" STICK TO OBAMA?

Both Clinton and Obama are millionaires, though Clinton is vastly wealthier. Her tax returns show she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have taken in nearly $110 million since they left the White House in early 2001.

Beginning two months ago, Clinton has made a big push to target factory workers, truck drivers and other middle-class voters by pledging to fight for their concerns like affordable health care and relief from mortgage woes. She has also emphasized her roots growing up in a middle-class suburb of Chicago.

Obama has added a similar populist tone to his campaign speeches, promising to try to rein in lavish pay packages of CEOs and help stem factory job losses. He seemed to be having some success connecting with blue-collar voters as he mingled with them in bowling allies and coffee shops on a six-day bus tour across Pennsylvania.

Though he comes from a family of modest means and worked for meager pay after college as a community organizer, Obama has an image as an intellectual. He attended Harvard Law School and Columbia University and has taught constitutional law.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION?

If Obama wins the Democratic nomination -- which many analysts think likely -- McCain and his Republican allies are likely to try to revive the label of elitism.

When Obama's comments first surfaced, an aide to McCain said they showed an "elitism and condescension toward hard-working Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking."

President George W. Bush seemed to have success with this strategy in the 2004 presidential campaign, poking fun at his Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry's upper-class tastes like his enjoyment of windsurfing off Nantucket Island and his preference for Swiss cheese over processed American cheese.

(Reporting by Caren Bohan in Chicago, Editing by Chris Wilson)

(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)