Snipergate vs. Bittergate

Now, I know that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been campaigning for over a year now, and have probably given close to 10,000 speeches each since they started campaigning.

But today, I would like to examine the most recent gaffes that the two have made over the past two weeks and determine what effect they might have on the Pennsylvania primary.

So, just to recap, Clinton said that she was under sniper fire with Chelsea while visiting a war-torn Bosnia in the '90s. It turned out that that never happened, and it was a flat-out lie.

Her campaign has said she was tired when she said, and that she remembered that trip incorrectly, and yada yada yada. But the underlying issue surrounding this gaffe was her trustworthiness, which has come into question a few times before.

A new ABC poll has found that 6 out of 10 Pennsylvanians don't believe that she is a "trustworthy" candidate. This could potentially hurt her with undecided voters who want someone they can trust and rely on.

On the flip side, Obama made one his biggest mistakes of the campaign season by saying "it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations" when referring to blue collar working-class Pennsylvanians and their financial woes.

The Clinton and McCain campaigns immediately launched attacks soon after he said this, calling the remarks "elitist," "out of touch," etc. This obviously could hurt Obama even further among working-class voters, which comprise many of the undecided voters that Clinton and Obama are targeting.

So which one will have a longer-lasting impression on Pennsylvania Democrats? I think the answer is clearly Obama's "Bittergate." What he said (although not entirely untrue), offended a lot of rural, blue collar Pennsylvanians who thought he was being condescending, elitist, and not "one of them."

In the end, I don't think that voters will care whether or not Clinton was under sniper fire in Bosnia. But they will remember being insulted by Obama, and that just might influence enough votes to give Clinton a 10-point victory in the state.