A friend of mine was in Pittsburgh yesterday and attended the AAM meeting, where both Obama and Clinton spoke, and where Clinton was booed. She reports that it was not because Clinton attacked Obama for being "elitist" - it was because she claimed Obama had just attacked her, when he had done no such thing.
The sequence of events was this: Obama came out first and gave a speech, then 4 people in the audience got to ask him questions - pre-planned questions. After he left, a panel of economists, labor, and management discussed the challenges China poses (the focus of the meeting - about which more below). Then Clinton came out, gave her speech, and was asked the same 4 questions.
There is a transcript of some of the questions and answers here, but it skips over the speeches. Nonetheless, you can see in his answers that Obama made only two, brief, references to Clinton (and to McCain in the same breath) that they had said he was "elitist" and "out of touch."
You know, there's been a lot of talk in this campaign over the last few days about who's in touch with the workers in Pennsylvania. Senator Clinton and Senator McCain seem to be singing from the same hymnbook, saying I'm out of touch, I'm an elitist because I said a lot of folks are bitter about their economic circumstances. Now, it may be that I chose my words badly. It's not the first time; it won't be the last. But when I hear my opponents, both of whom spent decades in Washington, saying I'm out of touch, it's time to cut through the rhetoric and look at the reality.
All the rest of his answer was devoted to showing that he was in touch. No other mention of her.
But when Clinton came out to give her speech, after him, she obviously hadn't heard him; she just assumed he had trashed her. So she accused him of doing so. That was the first set of "No! No! Don't go there!" from the audience (including my friend). When she plowed on anyway, that's when the booing started.
At that point my friend turned to the woman sitting next to her, a Hillary supporter, and asked "Is Hillary going down in flames?" The woman just put her hand over her eyes and shook her head.
Except for this incident, both candidates were well-received, though it seemed to my friend (admittedly, an Obama supporter) that Obama got the warmer reception.
The point here to my mind is this is so revealing of Clinton's attitude, and the problem she has with Obama: She assumed he would do what she would have done. (And he has gone on the attack, but not constantly, and not this time.) She honestly cannot fathom that he is running a different kind of campaign. Nor can she shift gears to deal with it - and that is why there is smoke coming out of her ears.
Meanwhile, back on the China question, the panel raised serious concerns about how China now manufactures so many parts of our military equipment - a situation that mainly developed over the last 4 years - and therefore, should be in a "military situation" where China is not on our side, we might find it impossible to produce critical materiel. Aside from scaring the beejesus out of my friend, the discussion also impressed her because the panelists did not talk down to the audience - an audience of a couple of thousand steelworkers.