Doug Palmer

Mayor Doug Palmer of Trenton, a loyal Hillary Clinton supporter, doesn’t think much of the dust-up over Clinton's comments about how exit polls in Indiana and North Carolina showed Barack Obama's "support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Palmer, one of Clinton’s highest-profile black supporters in New Jersey, refused any suggestion that she was trying to be manipulative, and said that she was only pointing out a fact that a whole host of pundits and analysts had already observed.

"She doesn't have to say that because people already see it and know it. And her saying it is not going to make it more important," he said, adding. "People need to step back and take a breath."

"She just has gotten a bad rap on this," he added. "You have 92 percent of African American voters going for him. And people said that he has black support."

He argued Obama's "bitter" comments were worse because they were made in a San Francisco fund-raiser. By contrast, with Clinton, he said, "It was not like she was saying something behind closed doors. She said it to the media."  read more »