Almost two years ago then presidential candidate Barack Obama (D) dismissed small town supporters of Republican candidates as people who

"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."

"But what is absolutely true is that people want to feel like they're being listened to. And so they pray, and they count on each other and they count on their families," Obama continued.

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But as he did Friday night, Obama on Saturday morning explained that he was only speaking to an evident reality -- that Americans who feel the government is not listening to their economic concerns turn to issues they can grasp, a response he said is understandable.

"It's interesting, right? Lately there's been a typical sort of political fight. 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 folks aren't paying attention to what they're doing here," he said Saturday.

A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was "obsessed" with President Obama to the point of being off-putting.