Milking for another day controversial remarks made last week by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton on Sunday hammered her Democratic presidential rival, saying his response to the furor over his comments demonstrates he is "out of touch "with middle America.

Obama has suffered three days of bad publicity as a result of a remark he made at an April 6 fundraiser in California in which he said that Americans are clinging to guns, religion and anti-immigration sentiment because they are bitter about Washington's unfulfilled economic promises.

Campaigning door-to-door in Scranton, Pa., on Sunday, Clinton stopped to speak with reporters, and said Obama's comments suggest he doesn't understand middle America.

"He's a good man and a talented and gifted man, but I think his comments were elitist and divisive. The Democratic Party has been unfortunately viewed by many people" as elitist and this doesn't help, she said. Clinton noted that guns and religion are ways of life and not tools people pick up when Washington fails.

"There are problems … but you don't have to psychoanalyze or patronize people to conclude that we have problems. And you know what? We are going to have to deal with those problems," she said.

Obama hit back hard, however, saying if anyone is out of touch, it's Clinton.

"I expected this out of John McCain. But I’ve got to say, I’m a little disappointed when I start hearing the exact same talking points coming out of my Democratic colleague, Hillary Clinton. She knows better. She knows better. Shame on her," Obama told voters. "She’s running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen. She’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley. Hillary Clinton is out there, she’s, out in a duck blind every Sunday. She’s packing a six shooter. Come on. She knows better."

In an effort to put an end to the conversation, Obama's campaign also organized members of his Pennsylvania Sportsmen Committee to defend him in a conference call with reporters. While Obama isn't a gun guy, Braddock Mayor John Fetterman said, at least he's honest about it.

"We as sportsmen in Pennsylvania appreciate that Senator Obama doesn't patronize or pander to this crowd," Fetterman said. He called it discouraging to see Clinton is pandering as if she's a gun owner or a hunter, saying it "demonstrates a willingness to say anything and everything to get elected."

Rejecting suggestions that she too is out of touch -- her tax returns show she and Bill Clinton earned $109 million in the seven years since they've been out of the White House -- Clinton said Sunday she is "rooted in the middle class."Middle class values are at the "heart and soul of the American experience," Clinton said, adding that she has been and will fight for average Americans.

Perhaps demonstrating how real she is, Clinton on Saturday night showed voters she can knock back a whiskey with the best of them. After taking a couple sips from a glass of Crown Royal, Clinton downed a shot at a bar in Crown Point, Ind.

But the reality of the race is Obama continues his position as the front-runner nationally. A RealClearPolitics average of Pennsylvania polls has Clinton solidly in front, but Gallup polls all week put Obama up by eight to 10 points nationally.

Despite all the attention on his remarks, Obama also received a bump on Sunday when the Scranton newspaper gave him its endorsement.The Scranton Times Tribune, based in the heart of Clinton territory, the city where Hillary Clinton's father was born, said the New York senator is "an extremely talented politician who already has secured a unique place in U.S. political history" and has proven herself "a master of public policy." However, the paper wrote, she is "a political lightning rod."

"In a nomination campaign that has defied convention, Mr. Obama has energized an entire generation of voters that, for the most part, otherwise had checked out of political participation. That, at least, portends a new approach to governance that can help to dissipate the political miasma that has engulfed Washington at least since the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton," the paper wrote.

The paper's editors did not mention the recent comments by Obama, who is standing behind the sentiment, telling the Winston-Salem Journal: "If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that."

Despite the paper's endorsement, the Clinton campaign hammered back by passing out to traveling reporters photocopies of the Scranton Times Tribune's front page, which carried a large, three-column headline that read in part "Obama Choking on 'Bitter' Pill." The paper also carried a sidebar story in the center of the front page headlined "Area Mayors Take Offense." The Obama endorsement is teased on the front page but in a small box on the left side of the page.

With nine days left to the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania, any advantage could propel the remaining candidates into a final sprint of the remaining nine contests. Helping that along are surrogates like Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a Clinton supporter, who said Obama needs to take a closer look at the people he's claiming are disenfranchised.

"I'm certainly saddened to hear those kinds of comments. ... They don't represent the thoughts of people throughout this great commonwealth," Nutter told "FOX News Sunday." "It just demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of what small-town America is about."

Former Sen. Tom Daschle, an Obama backer, countered that his candidate was trying to key in on the divisiveness of Washington. "Well, what he was saying is that there are those who use guns and religion, use faith and guns, as a divisive issue. And when you're angry, when you feel disenfranchised, you're more susceptible to those kinds of divisive politics, that those who thrive on that divisive nature of these emotional issues really are the ones that he was faulting here," he said.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said the claim that Americans are clinging to guns and religion is "a major gaffe" on Obama's part, but may not have much impact in the short run.

"Personally I think Obama has so many advantages now it will be difficult if not impossible for Clinton to catch up," he said. "But it will return for the fall campaign."

FOX News' Aaron Bruns and Mosheh Oinounou contributed to this report.