Clinton did just that at a stop Saturday at Bronko’s restaurant in Crown Point, Ind.

The two presidential candidates continued to hammer each other Monday after a weekend of criticism stemming from Obama’s comment that some small-town voters are bitter over their economic circumstances and “cling to guns and religion” as a result. Obama uttered the words at a private fundraiser in San Francisco last week and Clinton has seized on them in seeking the edge in Pennsylvania, which holds its primary April 22.

Obama also chided Clinton over NAFTA and the Colombian trade deal. Clinton has criticized NAFTA, which was passed under her husband’s watch. She opposes the Colombian trade deal even though former President Clinton supports it and her top campaign strategist, Mark Penn, met with Colombian officials to help push for its passage. Penn has since been demoted.

“Here’s what you can’t do. You can’t spend the better part of two decades campaigning for NAFTA and PNTR for China, and then come here to Pennsylvania, and tell the steelworkers you’ve been with them all along,” Obama said. “You can’t say you are opposed to the Colombia Trade deal, while your key strategist is working for the Colombian government to get the deal passed.”

Clinton was scheduled to address the gathering later Monday. Both candidates are hoping to secure the endorsement of the influential United Steelworkers union, which backed Democrat John Edwards before he dropped out of the race. Steelworkers president Leo Gerard introduced Obama to the crowd, saying, “We’re tired, we’re frustrated, we’re angry and we need somebody who’s going to stand up for fair trade.”

Campaigning Sunday in Pennsylvania, Clinton derided Obama’s comments about small-town voters as “elitist and divisive” and suggested they could doom Democrats’ chances for recapturing the White House in November if Obama were the nominee.

At a union hall outside Harrisburg, Obama said he’d expected blowback from GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain but said he’d been “a little disappointed” to be criticized by Clinton. “Shame on her,” he said.

Laughing, the Illinois senator noted Clinton seemed much more interested in guns since he made his comments than she had been in the past. On Saturday, the former first lady reminisced about learning to shoot on summer vacations in Scranton, where her father grew up.

“She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment. She’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley,” Obama said.

Clinton has told campaign audiences that she supports the rights of hunters. She’s also said she once shot a duck in Arkansas, where she served as first lady.

Clinton, who is trailing Obama in the popular vote and pledged delegates, has pounded Obama since audio from his San Francisco appearance was posted on The Huffington Post Web site. She hoped the comments might give her a new opening to court working-class Democrats less than 10 days before the Pennsylvania primary, which she needs win to keep her campaign going.

At the San Francisco fundraiser, Obama tried to explain his troubles in winning over some blue-collar voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions: “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.”

In Scranton on Sunday, Clinton said Obama’s words would probably alienate voters in Pennsylvania and other states holding primaries in the coming weeks. Indiana and North Carolina vote on May 6.

“How does he see people here in this neighborhood, throughout Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, other places in our country?” she asked during an informal news conference. “I think that’s what people are looking for, some explanation, and he has simply not provided one.”

Despite fears that polling day would witness an explosion of violence, only sporadic incidents took place in a country still recovering from a decade of civil war which left 13,000 dead.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon congratulated Nepal on the vote, which he said “took place in a generally orderly and peaceful atmosphere.”

“Nepal stuns world, itself,” read a banner headline in the English-language daily The Kathmandu Post, trumpeting the smooth running of the high-stakes polls.

“The Nepali people have once more proved doomsayers wrong,” crowed the Nepali Times.

In spite of clashes, shootings and bombings in the weeks leading up to the polls, just 33 of around 21,000 polling booths had to be shut, the Election Commission said.

Security had been tight across the country, and only isolated flare-ups, including three deaths in the ethnically tense south, were reported — no worse than on any other day.

If the count goes smoothly, the results for more than a third of the seats, those allocated by the constituency system, were expected in just over a week, the Election Commission said.

“Results have already started trickling in. There are some areas where the ballot boxes are still coming and it may take some time due to remote geographical conditions,” spokesman Laxman Bhattarai told AFP.

The rest of the seats, allocated by proportional representation, will take longer to decide as the count will be more complex. The complete results are not expected for several weeks.

Kathmandu’s City Hall constituency — the only one to use electronic voting machines — was the first to declare results, with the seat going to the centrist Nepali Congress led by interim Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala.

When the full results emerge over the coming weeks, Nepal will have a new 601-seat assembly that will tear up the country’s past status as a Hindu monarchy and write a new constitution from scratch.

But strains could start to show after the votes have been counted, with the first challenge being to get the major parties to accept the results, analysts have said.

The Maoists, whose 2006 peace deal ended the bloody civil war and the king’s attempt to seize absolute power, hold 84 seats in the 330-seat caretaker assembly and control five ministries without ever fighting an election.

Political observers have expressed concern the former guerrillas may take to the streets if they make a poor showing.

“The very first challenge will be to get to the end of the counting process and have the major parties accept the results,” said Rhoderick Chalmers, Nepal’s country director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

King Gyanendra, who ascended the throne in 2001 after the much-loved former monarch and most of his family were massacred by a drunk-and-drugged crown prince, will also be closely watched.

While widely unpopular for trying to seize absolute power, he can still count on support from sections of the army and from fundamentalists who see him as an incarnation of a Hindu god.

Condition applied (if  Nepal rastriya Bikas Party Wins  upcoming election)