Senator Barack Obama talked himself into a corner last week with his "bitter" comments regarding rural Pennsylvanians' attitudes toward their government.

Senator Hillary Clinton immediately jumped on the comments, oozing with false empathy for the plight of rural northeasterners.

Obama has apologized for what he called a poor choice of words.

But some of what he said was dead on. Many people are bitter, and they view elected officials with cynicism.

In parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, there is a sense that our elected leaders are grossly out of touch with the economic problems of everyday Americans.

In Steuben and Allegheny counties, for instance, the economic problems are stinging.

The people that Obama addressed in his speech have watched their farming way of life disappear, and their manufacturing jobs go to workers in India and China. Many jobs that were not outsourced have been eliminated due to advances in technology.

Can the president really do anything about this? It's debatable.

But it isn't asking too much to expect a presidential candidate to understand what has happened to people living in these areas. When the media refers to America's shrinking middle class, often they're talking about people who live in this neck of the woods.

This probably won't be a fatal stumble for Obama. And Clinton, who is better at reading her constituents, won't get much more traction out of this other than to steer attention away from her own misstatements.

But both candidates need to stop talking in such revelatory terms about the latest poor mother without health insurance or the couple that they met on the campaign trail that lost their home to foreclosure.

Many of us have been meeting these folks for years.