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Ballot Bowl 2008

Continued Presidential Election Coverage

Aired April 12, 2008 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to a new edition of BALLOT BOWL 08, I'm Jim Acosta in Valparaiso, Indiana. And as always, BALLOT BOWL is a chance for you the viewers to hear the candidates in their own words.
In just a few hours from now, Hillary Clinton will be speaking to a crowd of enthusiastic supporters here in a high school gymnasium. We should note that this is Washington Township High School where we are broadcasting from. It is the home of the senators. That's right, the senators. And as one of Hillary Clinton's supporters mentioned to me earlier, today, it will be the home of the fighting senators.

We should also note that we're inside a basketball gymnasium in the Hoosier state where miracles can happen, Hillary has been able to pick up a few easy lay ups over the last 24 hours thanks to a verbal gaffe from her chief rival, Barack Obama. With that, I'll turn it over to my colleague Suzanne Malveaux, who is in Philadelphia where there is a big primary coming up on April 22nd and she is following what's happening with the Obama campaign.

Hi, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Well, hey, Jim, we've got a busy schedule. We are checking the game plan as you know.

A real dustup between all three of the candidates over some comments that Senator Barack Obama made in a closed event in San Francisco. When he characterized some of Pennsylvania's voters as being bitter about their circumstances. Senator Hillary Clinton weighing on this, seizing those comments saying Barack Obama is out of touch with those voters. We will hear from her later in this hour. She is in Mishawaka, Indiana. That is where we'll bring her live, her comments about Barack Obama.

Senator John McCain is off the campaign trail today, taking a break, but he is still weighing in as well, we'll hear some comments from him. He really believes that he can seize on this in the general election if Barack Obama becomes the nominee that he can pull some of those working class voters, those independent voters away from Obama, so we'll hear from him.

We want to take you first, however, to those comments that were controversial, those that are creating this kind of brouhaha. It was a San Francisco closed event in which Barack Obama was speaking to a group. There was someone inside of the room who happened to get an audio recording of it and posted it on Huffington Post. Take a listen. (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

(INAUDIBLE)

(END OF AUDIO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Now there's been a lot made of this, whether or not this is offensive to some Pennsylvania voters, or whether or not there are other people who believe that he was simply speaking the truth. There is a huge debate that is taking place with the blogs on the internet about what does this mean for Pennsylvania voters and beyond? What does it mean for people in general, working class? What was he trying to say? Barack Obama is trying to straighten all of this out, trying to explain what his comments meant. This from this morning in Muncie, Indiana Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Lately, there's been a little typical sort of political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true. Which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois, who are bitter. They are angry. They feel like they've been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through. So I said, well, you know, when you're bitter, you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns. Or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their communities. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country. Or they get frustrated about how things are changing. That's a natural response. And now I didn't say it as well as I should have because the truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That's what sustains us but what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they're being listened to. You know? So they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives. And what we need is a government that is actually paying attention, a government that is fighting for working people day in and day out, making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream. And that's what this campaign is about. We've got to get past the divisions. We've got to get past the distractions of our politics and fight for each other.

And that's why I'm running for president of the United States and I think we've got an opportunity to bring about that change right here and right now, but I'm going to need your help, Indiana. I'm going to need your help. And if we decide that we're working together, if we're not divided and we're not distracted, then we can stop, we can change Washington. Look, we can tell the lobbyists, their days of setting the agenda are over. They haven't funded my campaign, they won't run our White House, they will not drown out the voice of the American people when I'm president of the United States of America. We can stop talking about the outrage of 47 million people without health insurance and start doing something about it. I put forward a plan that says if you got health insurance, we're going to lower your premiums by $2,500 per family per year. If you don't have health insurance, you'll be able to buy health insurance to get a plan that is at least as good as the health care I have as a member of congress, you won't be excluded for pre-existing conditions. If you can't afford it, we will subsidize you. We will emphasize prevention and regular checkups to save money and we won't wait 20 years from now to do it or 10 years from now to do it. We'll do it by the end of my first term as president of the United States of America.

If you're ready for change, we can start creating an economy that is fair. You know, I believe in the free market. I believe in entrepreneurship and capitalism. I think America is all about rewarding people who are successful. That's great. I think we're all, we all believe in self-reliance, you got to work hard in order to get ahead, live out your American dream.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton fiercely fighting over the state of Pennsylvania, really the primary just around the corner it is a contest that is very close. It is Senator Clinton who's had the lead for a significant period of time, but that lead, we see, has been narrowing over the weeks as you get closer to the primary. So both of these voters really looking for every vote that counts. Senator Clinton in particular, depending on two groups for her lead. The older voters and the working class voters, those who say that they are worried about the gas prices, losing their homes. Where this economy is going. That is why this debate here over whether or not these voters are bitter and how Barack Obama classifies or characterizes them really seems to be playing out in a very significant way. I want to bring in Jim Acosta now, because Jim I know you're following the Clinton campaign and how she's responding to all of this. We have seen that she is really seized on this moment, on this debate, we know that the Clinton campaign has been watching for some weeks now to see if Barack Obama would slip up in any kind of significant way that might change this equation. What are you hearing from the Clintons today?

ACOSTA: Well, the Clinton campaign has seized on this, you're right, Suzanne. Our Blackberries have been flooded with e-mails from the Clinton campaign essentially trying to capitalize on these comments from Barack Obama. She has already described these comments as demeaning. And Indiana is just as important as Pennsylvania at this point because Hillary Clinton who is favored to win Pennsylvania, although polls have tightened over the past few days. She is looking to win Indiana and she is trying to appeal to the same kinds of voters here in Indiana.

She's up live right now in Mishawaka, Indiana, she is talking to a crowd of supporters there holding what appears to be sort of a town hall style meeting in Mishawaka, Indiana. She'll be here in Valparaiso later on this afternoon. But the voters that she's trying to appeal to in Indiana are very much like the types of voters that she is trying to appeal to in Pennsylvania. Blue collar, working class voters. Those are the voters she needs to show up in force on Election Day. Let's go to Hillary Clinton to this event earlier today in Indianapolis where she talked about Barack Obama's comments. In just a few moments, we'll do that, but first let's go to that live event that you're looking at now in Mishawaka. Here's Hillary Clinton in Mishawaka.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, letting other kinds of essential defense business like the Boeing proposal that was turned down in favor of Airbus to build our tankers. We've got to start asking some hard questions here. We need a top to bottom, bottom to top review. We also have to tackle the problem of industrial espionage and we've got to zero in on the advantages other countries are taking by stealing our technology first and foremost China.

We are losing valuable technology and know-how. Some of it frankly we're selling, which makes me very concerned. Some of it, we are giving away and some of it is being stolen from us. But whatever way you look at it, we're losing advantages that we've got to begin to recoup. We also want to protect the buy American provisions for buying very essential metals from right here in the United States. A lot of the important defense work that is done requires certain specific metals.

Evan Bayh and I are on one side of this debate and President Bush and John McCain are on the other side of the debate. Senator McCain and President Bush don't seem to care that we might have a problem getting access to buy the metals we need for a lot of our defense work. So Evan has been leading the charge and I'm supporting him to prevent that from being outsourced. Everywhere you turn around. The other problem that we've had is the lack of planning and the negligence about what we needed to supply our troops. It was difficult to get the secretary of defense when it was Secretary Rumsfeld to take seriously all these equipment shortages.

You know it was body armor that we didn't have an adequate supply, it was up armor for humvees we didn't have an adequate supply. You had all sorts of shortages which he seemed either not to know about or not to care about. Every time he came before our committee and we would question him, he would look at us like why are you asking me these questions? The reason we were asking is because we were very concerned about our young men and women in uniform and what they were up against in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we've got to have a totally new approach that will focus on making American jobs a critical element in where and how and who produces all of our defense materiel. I am committed to doing that and we will get it done when I am president.

You know, I want Evan to join me up here because we want to hear from all of you. You all are here. You're on the front lines, literally, making what we have to have in order to protect and fulfill our mission. So we want to hear any of your thoughts or ideas. Throughout this campaign, I've said we need a time out from trade deals. We need to figure out how we're going to have a 21 century pro-American trade policy again. And we've got to redo NAFTA and I'm the only candidate who has said I will completely renegotiate NAFTA because we do need strong labor and environmental standards in the core agreement.

I will get tough on China. I've had a little practice doing that. I have done it before and I will do it as your president. But we also have to change attitudes inside our own country. We've got to change the attitudes of our corporations, our CEOs, we have to change the attitudes of our government officials, our purchasers of equipment, the people who write the laws and enforce the laws. I believe that we can do this, but we're not going to do it unless we change direction and that's going to be one of the big issues in this election.

I can just tell you right now, Senator McCain is a friend of mine. I respect and honor his service to our country. But he has a very different vision about where our economy should go. And he has consistently either not understood or disagreed with the kind of positions that Evan and I have taken. Where we believe we have an obligation to keep Americans working to provide for America's defense. That is our bottom line. So we would be glad to take any questions from anybody or any comments or any ideas that anybody might have. You know, because we're always open to ideas. That's one of the things that I learn more when I listen than when I talk about what we can do. Bruce, please. I'm going bring the microphone over here, Bruce. I'm going to be like Oprah here, we're going to travel around this circle. Here you go

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm just curious as to your views on this fast track legislation in the Colombia free trade deals, things like that, that seem to get pushed through without much debate?

CLINTON: I'm against giving this president fast track authority. I've said it. I'm unalterably opposed to giving it to him. I'm against the South Korea trade deal largely because of autos. Some of you as UAW members know that we tried to work out our trade problems with South Korea back in the mid 1990s. We actually signed an agreement with them, that they would open their markets to our cars. Well, you know, 10, 12, 13 years later, it still hasn't happened. So I'm against that trade deal. I'm against the Colombian trade deal because I believe that there has been a pattern, practice and history of abuses and even assassinations of labor leaders and organizers in Colombia. And I don't think we should be having a free trade agreement until we are convinced that it's in the best interest of America and American workers, number one. And that the Colombians are going to allow people to organize and bargain collectively, which is a basic human right.

EVAN BAYH: I would just add a couple of things to that, Bruce. We got these trade deals. There are provisions in there to help protect American workers and they're just not forced. Give you a fact, it's somewhere between 70, 75 percent reduction in the number of enforcement actions taken by our government to protect our --

ACOSTA: There you have Hillary Clinton and Senator Evan Bayh who is along with her, her superdelegate supporter here in Indiana. They're in Mishawaka talking to a crowd of United Auto Workers. She was asked about that Colombian trade deal, which was some controversy just recently. Evan Bayh we should have mentioned, he has weighed in on this Barack Obama calling on superdelegates to take into consideration what Senator Obama has said over the last 24 hours. Coming up after the break here on BALLOT BOWL on CNN, we'll get back to Hillary Clinton in Indiana. So stay with us, this is BALLOT BOWL ON CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Welcome back to BALLOT BOWL on CNN. I'm Jim Acosta in Valparaiso, Indiana. Right now, Hillary Clinton is talking to a crowd of what appears to be auto workers in Mishawaka, Indiana. She is being joined by her superdelegate surrogate in the Hoosier state, Evan Bayh, the senator from Indiana. We wanted to take you to that sound in just a few moments, but first, we want to go back to Hillary Clinton's event earlier this morning in Indianapolis, in the state capital where she weighed in on this controversy that flared up yesterday, Barack Obama's comments to a closed fundraiser out in California a couple of weeks ago in which he talked about blue collar workers being somewhat bitter because of the economic conditions that they find themselves in. Hillary Clinton has weighed in on this calling those comments demeaning. Let's go to Indianapolis earlier this morning. Hillary Clinton talking to supporters there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I was taking aback by the demeaning remarks Senator Obama made about people in small town America. Senator Obama's remarks are elitist and they're out of touch. They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans, certainly not the Americans that I know, not the Americans I grew up with, not the Americans I lived with in Arkansas or represent in New York.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: So there you have, Hillary Clinton in Indianapolis ratcheting up the rhetoric in this campaign referring to Barack Obama's comments as demeaning, elitist and out of touch. Let's go back to that live event in Mishawaka, Indiana, to see whether or not one of those steel workers, one of those auto workers there in the crowd will actually ask her about this controversy. Here's Hillary Clinton in Mishawaka.

CLINTON: -- They're buying and selling futures in oil, they buy the oil, they take it off the market so the price goes up, then they put it back on the market. They are not in the chain of supply. They are off speculating. And we have not done anything to rein them in, to figure out how we're going to control that. Remember what happened with Enron. Part of the problem with Enron is that Enron started trading electricity. They actually had traders taking entire utility plants offline in California to drive the price up. So I want to see investigations to get to the bottom of whether there's market manipulation going on. If I were president right now, I would be all over this. I would be having the federal trade commission and the department of justice asking all these hard questions and trying to figure out what's really going on here, because you cannot justify to me how fast these costs have gone up. That's number one. Number two, for some immediate relief, I would do what my husband did back in 2000, when we were facing a similar price spike. We have something called the strategic petroleum reserve. The United States, your government, buys up a lot of oil and sticks it in great big storage areas in case there's ever a disaster, we'll have some to fall back on. It's 97 percent full right now. We ought to be releasing some of that that will help to drop the price. That will send a message to the oil companies and the oil producing countries.

But look the third thing we've got to do is we've got to move toward more energy independence. We can't keep being dependent on these oil companies and these countries. Here's a really sad fact. We are more dependent on foreign oil today than we were on 9/11. Now remember, as a senator from New York, I mean that's a fact that just makes me sick. Because who flew those planes into the World Trade Center and into the pentagon? They were Saudis, right.

So here we are more dependent than we were. If we had just had a president after 9/11 who had said, I'll tell you one thing, we're going after the guys who attacked us and we're going to get them and we're going after the people who have funded extremism by taking away their source of money by becoming more energy efficient, more homegrown energy right here in the United States. So I proposed a strategic energy fund that would begin to create the condition for many more technologies. And I would fund this by taking the subsidies away from the oil companies. Because they do not need your money to make these outrageous profits. So we would put that money into more biofuel production, more support for our auto manufacturers so that we can get on a faster track to more fuel efficient cars. There are cars being test driven both American and foreign made right here in our country that get between 100 and 150 miles per gallon because they have these long lasting batteries. They're kind of the hyperhybrids if you will. We've got to get a market for those. That means we're going to have to help consumers buy them and afford them, give you more variety to choose from. We have a lot of flex fuel cars on the market but we don't have enough of a distribution system. The oil companies don't want to compete with themselves and put ethanol in those gas pumps. We have cars that could run on what's called E-85 which is a blend, but you can't find it hardly anywhere. Compare that to Brazil which has become energy independent because they use something they grow, sugar cane. So their cars are now running. We have American cars in Brazil that go and get filled up with a combination of gas and ethanol and they don't have to import their oil. So we've got to do this. And you know, that's the longer term, but if we don't get started now, we're going to fall further and further and further behind. I want to see us keep manufacturing cars in America so I want to help our manufacturers be able to do this and that means we're going to have to support retooling a lot of the factories, helping them with health care costs and just like we have to with all of our manufacturers. But I'm convinced we can do this. Our back is up against the wall. We're pretty good when our back's up against the wall, we just have to have the leadership and the team that will make that happen. That's the final thing I'll say before I want Evan to add to this because he's been working on this as hard as I have. We've got to get out of this mentality where we've got a labor team and a management team. Where we've got a republican team and a democratic team, we need an American team, one team where we're all working together, we're headed in the same direction.

ACOSTA: All right, so we'll do this.

So there you have Hillary Clinton in Mishawaka, Indiana. We'll go back to that live event after a break. Stick with us. This is ballot bowl on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL. This is really your chance to hear the candidates, all of them, whether it's live or on tape it is always unfiltered, a chance to hear them, long form, really addressing the voters, answering the questions. That's what we're listening to now, Senator Hillary Clinton she is in Mishawaka, Indiana, that is where one of her closest supporters, Evan Bayh is speaking. Let's take a listen, they've been talking about energy.

SEN. EVAN BAYH: They steal from us. This is not a sustainable course for our country. She's exactly right. Invest in American made high efficiency cars, diversify our fuel source with American farmers and invest in these long-term solutions to really free us of this dependency, then you've got to protect the innovation and once it takes place, and not just have the Chinese or other people keep ripping us off. She's been very, very strong on these things. My best guess is that health care, a couple of other things, this energy issue is going to be right at the front of an agenda for President Clinton.

CLINTON: Well, thank you. You know, we'll take one more question because I see some books to sign and see a few cameras here and I know you all have a lot of other places to go on a Saturday afternoon. So do you have a question, too. I'll take two more questions, I'll take this lady, then I'll come over to you. Ok?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just want to know once you take over the White House, how soon would it take you to get our troops back home?

CLINTON: Do you know somebody serving over there?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

CLINTON: How many of you have known somebody who has served over in Iraq? That's a lot. Yeah. Well, here's what I will do. I have said that as soon as I become president, I'm going to get the secretary of against and the joint chiefs of staff and my security advisers to give me a plan right away to withdraw our troops safely because we all know you can't just wake up one morning and say ok, start bringing them home. You've got to plan for it, you have to do it carefully because it's dangerous withdrawing troops. I expect to be able to start withdrawing troops within 60 days of my becoming president. And I will continue until we have brought them home. I think that is -- you know, that is one of the most important obligations that I will have. Evan and I, on the senate armed services committee, just sat through the hearings with General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. And they are two great patriots. They are doing the best they can to implement the policy that they've been given under very difficult circumstances. But the policy is wrong. You know, President Bush has given the Iraqis a blank check. You know when Evan and I were over in Iraq a little over a year ago now, and we met with all of the members of the Iraqi government and listened to them and asked them questions, we heard the same things that I had heard two years before, that I had heard two years before that, we're going to get an oil law, they told us. We're going to move towards political reconciliation, they told us. We're going to make sure that we bring back into the government and the army people who were purged because they had been members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist party, on and on and on. None of it has happened. Part of the reason I believe it hasn't happened is because we've given them this blank check. May we provide security for the members of the Iraqi government. And I just believe we've got to make it clear to them, they have to take responsibility to chart their own course. That is what I will tell them when I'm president. Do you want to add to that?

BAYH: You know, in some ways, we're hiring somebody to take on the toughest job on earth. Right? We've talked about some of these issues here today. What to do to grow our economy in a difficult time, what to do about our energy dependency, what to do to begin to end the war in Iraq, what about the cost of health care.

MALVEAUX: You've been listening to Senator Clinton and her supporter Evan Bayh there, speaking to voters, taking some questions, answering those questions, talking about energy as well as Iraq. We'll have much more of Senator Clinton, all of the candidates after the break when BALLOT BOWL continues. We will also have the latest news right after. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. We'll get you back to the BALLOT BOWL right after a check of the airlines. American Airlines back in business. The nation's largest airliner tells the Associated Press that the FAA has cleared all but three American air jets to resume operation. 3,300 flights have been canceled since Tuesday amid safety concerns over wiring bundles. American says they could be back up and running normally as soon as this afternoon

A bit more travel trouble for the Olympic torch. Yesterday in Argentina's capital, a protestors hurled a water balloon at the torch procession but a guard was able to bat it away. Overall, anti-China protests were small and orderly there. The torch is now set to arrive in the African nation of Tanzania tonight

Iraqi troops have recovered more bodies believed to be connected to sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis. Tips from captured Shiite fighters led to several mass graves in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. Forty-five bodies have now been recovered this week alone.

And in Maine in this country, a 19-year-old man has been charged with arson and other crimes in a string of car fires. Ten fires were set early Friday morning in a ten block area near Portland's downtown. At three of those fires, the flames spread from cars to nearby apartment buildings. Thankfully no one was hurt

After blizzard like conditions yesterday, some spring snow showers are hitting the upper Midwest today. Northern New England could also get a dusting. Parts of the south are cleaning up after yet another round of severe weather. Yesterday's storms left several people injured in Kentucky and Tennessee.

(WEATHER REPORT)

WHITFIELD: Here's an update for you. Blu-ray has won the high def video format battle. So is it time to toss your HD-DVD equipment? With Jacqui Jeras of course, your options in today's tech effect segment.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACQUI JERAS: So you were waiting to find out who was going to win the war, Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. The war is over. Blu-Ray is victorious. Now do you need to go rush out and buy one right away? To answer that question is Brian Cooley from C-Net.com. Brian, how about it?

BRIAN COOLEY, C-NET.COM: Jacqui, there's no rush to either go out and buy Blu-Ray just because it won or to unload your HD-DVD system that you bought recently just because it lost. It's not going to stop working. There's a limited number of movies for it. That's not going to grow so it does have a dead end nature to it. But if you like it, you can keep it. There's no reason to have to get rid of it.

JERAS: Right, and you can just run regular DVDs on it.

COOLEY: It's still a multi functional disc player in most cases. It will do more than just HD-DVD but it has no future.

JERAS: Are we going to see a lot more from Blu-Ray? Do we need to get in on that technology right away?

COOLEY: If you wait on Blu-Ray, because Blu-Ray is not going away now, we know that and more titles will come, prices will come down, probably gradually, plus there's a new kind of blu-ray coming called Blu-Ray profile 2 that is going to allow the deck to connect to the internet to pull supplemental material, not just be focused on the disc and to give you picture in picture.

JERAS: Do you think that's going to be the wave of the future, going more online?

COOLEY: I think online is where it's going to happen. So the disc model I think his is the last gasp of a disc war. The next thing we'll all be focused on in a year or two or three is going to be getting our teeth into online movie delivery. Everything is always available. They'll be able to do HD movies easily, a little bit out in the future over the internet. And that I think is the ultimate for consumers.

JERAS: Great information. Brian Cooley from C-Net.com. Thanks so much.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All these changes costing us a loot of money out there.

That's it from the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. BALLOT BOWL returns after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL, it's really your chance to get to hear these candidates whether it is live or on tape, it is always unfiltered, really a chance to hear the questions that voters pose, also some of their own speeches as they explain their positions to the voters. What has developed is really a controversy, kind of a brouhaha over the latest comments from Senator Barack Obama. It was made at a closed event in San Francisco last week. It was before a group of fundraisers, donors, one of those people who calls herself a citizen journalist, tape recorded the comments that he made and it has caused somewhat of a stir here, describing some of the voters in Pennsylvania as being bitter because of their experiences. Let's take a listen. It was first posted on Huffington Post.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

(INAUDIBLE)

(END OF AUDIO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: The person who recorded that, her name is Mayhill Fowler. She talked on Lou Dobbs tonight, yesterday to our own Kitty Pilgrim, she was explaining that this was an event for fund raisers, those who essentially made donations to Barack Obama's campaign. Maxed out on those donations $2,300. She calls herself a citizen journalist. I want to bring in our senior political analyst Bill Schneider out of Washington. Bill, the first question I have is she's calling herself a journalist, yet it is clear that she's a Barack Obama supporter. That she has given money to the campaign. She said that she felt, I guess, uncomfortable with what we she was hearing, so therefore she took these audio taped comments and posted it on this blog. What do you get a sense from what happened inside there, her motivation or how that's playing out?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: The only thing we know is what she said last night on Lou Dobbs, I was listening to her. And she said she was there as a supporter of Barack Obama. It was a room full of people who had quote, maxed out, namely given the maximum of $2,300 in total contributions to the primary campaign of Senator Obama. She said she and some other people there were bothered by his comments. They were made last Sunday. She did tape record them, she calls herself a citizen journalist who writes a blog which is posted on the Huffington Post website. She decided after some thought these comments did bother her enough that she put them into her blog and of course yesterday they appeared on the Huffington Post. She and others were bothered by what Obama said at the fundraiser. MALVEAUX: What do you get a sense from the fallout of all of this? We have seen this really kind of erupt, explode on the internet, the blog, a lot of people really very strong emotions about this. There are a lot of people are saying what Barack Obama simply was explaining, reflecting the truth of what a lot of people feel, bitterness and perhaps turning to mask, to deal with some of their feelings over where they are in life. And others who find these remarks stereotypical and offensive. What do you think is going to be the reaction and even the fallout for Barack Obama?

SCHNEIDER: Obviously there is a division over what he meant and what he said. Often between his supporters and Hillary Clinton and John McCain's supporters who have been very vocal about it. The controversy is not so much on the issue of bitterness, there is a lot of bitterness, he's quite right about that. People are angry, they're frustrated. You've been to Pennsylvania, I've been to Pennsylvania. People are faced with the loss of their jobs, their incomes have stagnated or declined and they're very worried about their f future. I think that is undeniable. But he made a connection, this is what is controversial. He said that people often turn to religion or guns or they oppose trade or illegal immigration because they're bitter or frustrated with their lives. A lot of voters will feel that that shows a lack of respect for their values. He tried to in a statement today tried to disconnect that connection. Here's what Barack Obama said by way of explanation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I said something that everybody knows is true. Which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois, who are bitter. They are angry. They feel like they've been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through. So I said, well, you know, when you're bitter, you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns. Or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their communities. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country. Or they get frustrated about how things are changing. That's a natural response.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: He also said, "I did not say it as well as I should have because the truth is these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That's what sustains us." So in that statement he is trying to communicate a respect for people's values that didn't come across in his original statement. Suzanne?

MALVEAUX: Bill, it's kind of hard to assess this but I want you to try here because you and I were bombarded with e-mails, people from all of the campaigns who push some of these things. How much of this do you think is real voters in Pennsylvania across the country who are really offended and upset by what Barack Obama said? And how much of it is do you think the campaigns are exploiting this, that they're trying to use this to their advantage so they're pushing this story forward hoping that we're going to make this into a big, big news story?

SCHNEIDER: Well, a lot of it is of course activists. Some directed by the campaign but many of these activists are self- directed. They are ardent supporters of either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, some John McCain who are genuinely insulted by this and those activists communicate their views very freely to you and to me and to others of us in the media. It's very hard to tell. That's what polling is for. That's why we go out into the field and we talk to voters. We just don't know how much of an impact this is going to have until we talk to voters and see how they're responding to it. So we have to reserve judgment until we get some more evidence.

MALVEAUX: Ok, thank you, Bill. Bill Schneider out of Washington, D.C., senior political analyst, we'll get back to obviously for your perspective on all of this. I want to read a statement from the McCain campaign about this controversy, about Barack Obama's comments. This from a spokesperson that was sent today. He says, "Barack Obama's elitism allows him to believe that the American traditions that have contributed to the identity and greatness of this country are actually just frustrations and bitterness. What everyone knows is that the constitution's second amendment and our country's strong roots in faith are corner stone customs in this country and Barack Obama's dismissal of those values is revealing" That's from Tucker Bonds, spokesman for the John McCain campaign, obviously weighing in on this. This is something that is being fiercely debated on the internet and the blogs. As people take a look, they are dissecting the comments of Barack Obama, all of this because the Pennsylvania primary right where we are, really less than two weeks away, where voters are going to be casting the critical ballots add their votes here, Senator Clinton hoping she can clinch this state that will give her a strong chance momentum to move on to those next contests. Senator Barack Obama trying to keep his lead and obviously McCain going after both of them, but specifically Barack Obama on this issue. Seeing an opening here to perhaps damage him at this point in the campaign. We'll have all of this and more coming up after the break as BALLOT BOWL continues.

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MALVEAUX: Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL, CNN has special election coverage later on this evening it is called "Route 2008," it's a special show at 10 o'clock this evening with our own John King and what he is doing, what he has been doing is traveling across the state of Pennsylvania, talking to voters, getting a sense of the issues that are important to them. That at 10:00 tonight eastern with John King. It is "Route 2008." Then looking forward to tomorrow, you're not going to want to miss this. This is at 8:00 in the evening eastern. It is the compassion forum. What it is, it is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, hosted by our own Campbell Brown. She is going to be looking at and speaking with Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on issues of faith, issues of compassion. What really moves them, what draws them. Some real personal aspects to both of these candidates on the issue of religion and faith and what it means to them. What it means to the campaign. That again is tomorrow at 8:00 eastern t is a compassion forum hosted by our own Campbell Brown. Stay with us, more of BALLOT BOWL after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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