"I Didn’t Say It as Well as I Should Have"

Barack Obama admitted Saturday that he chose his words poorly when he told a group of California donors that small-town Americans “cling” to guns and religion and xenophobia out of bitterness over lost jobs, but for the second day in a row stood by the comments and weathered pointed criticism from Hillary Clinton.

“I didn’t 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,” Obama said in Muncie, Ind., minutes before Clinton jumped in and called his remarks “elitist.”