Obama on whether Clinton can win, and his statements regarding small towns

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Obama, do you think Senator Clinton can win?

SENATOR OBAMA: Absolutely, and I've said so before. But I too think that I'm the better candidate. (Laughter.) And I don't think that surprises anybody.

Let me just pick up on a couple of things that Senator Clinton said, though, because during the course of the last few days, you know, she's said I'm elitist, out of touch, condescending. Let me be absolutely clear. It would be pretty hard for me to be condescending towards people of faith, since I'm a person of faith and have done more than most other campaigns in reaching out specifically to people of faith, and have written about how Democrats make an error when they don't show up and speak directly to people's faith, because I think we can get those votes, and I have in the past.

The same is true with respect to gun owners. I have large numbers of sportsmen and gun owners in my home state, and they have supported me precisely because I have listened to them, and I know them well.

So the problem that we have in our politics, which is fairly typical, is that you take one person's statement, if it's not properly phrased, and you just beat it to death. And that's what Senator Clinton's been doing over the last four days. And I understand that.

That's politics, and I expect to have to go through this -- this process.

But I do think it's important to recognize that it's not helping that person who's sitting at the kitchen table who is trying to figure out how to pay the bills at the end of the month.

And Senator Clinton's right. She has gone through this. You know, I recall when back in 1992, when she made a statement about how, what do you expect, should I be at home baking cookies?

And people attacked her for being elitist and this and that. And I remember watching that on TV and saying, well, that's not who she is; that's not what she believes; that's not what she meant. And I'm sure that that's how she felt as well.

But the problem is that that's the kind of politics that we've been accustomed to. And I think Senator Clinton learned the wrong lesson from it, because she's adopting the same tactics.

What the American people want are not distractions. They want to figure out, how are we actually going to deliver on health care; how are we going to deliver better jobs for people; how are we going to improve their incomes; how are we going to send them to college?

That's what we have to focus on. And yes, they are in part frustrated and angry, because this is what passes for our politics in terms -- instead of figuring out, how do we build coalitions to actually move things forward?