JOHNSTOWN -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton today slammed Sen. Barack Obama for saying that Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, would be a "better" chief executive than President Bush.

"We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain. And I will be that nominee," Mrs. Clinton told a raucous crowd in the gymnasium of the Greater Johnstown High School this evening.

Mr. Obama made his comments earlier in the day at an event in Reading.

"Either Democrat would be better than John McCain," he said, according to the Associated Press. "And all three of us would be better than George Bush."

Mrs. Clinton ran over a list of Mr. McCain's policies to display his strong links to the current president and criticized the Arizona senator's stance on the Iraq war and his more hands-off approach to the foreclosure crisis.

"Sen. McCain thinks it's OK to keep our troops in Iraq for the next hundred years. Is that better than Bush?"

"No!" the crowd shouted.

This corner of Pennsylvania -- once an industrial behemoth -- is likely to be solid Hillary Country on Tuesday. It is home to the white, working class voters who have heavily supported Mrs. Clinton in primary contests across the country.

Many of her backers here are still smarting over Mr. Obama's comments at a fundraiser that small-town Pennsylvanians are "bitter" over their economic struggles.

"I really do feel he talked down to blue-collar workers," said Pam O'Kinsky, 53, of Somerset, whose father worked in a Johnstown steel mill. "I don't like Obama."

Hillary, she said, "is a strong woman."

She and her daughter both said they would support Arizona Sen. John McCain over Mr. Obama in the fall election if Mrs. Clinton can't catch up in the Democratic delegate race.

That could be an ominous development for Democrats, who need party unity if they hope to retake the White House from Republicans. But the campaign's recent ugly tone in Pennsylvania may be taking a toll, even in solidly Democratic Johnstown.

"They're two evils, so I wouldn't even make a decision," Kelly Swanson, 45, said of Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain, as she patted her hands on a large "Hillary" sticker on her forearm.

Her husband, a furnace operator at North American Hoganas and member of the United Steelworkers, said he would support either Democratic candidate.

"Nobody is going to get in there and be perfect," he said.

They both lamented Johnstown's economic ills in recent decades. Mrs. Swanson said as many as half of her relatives don't have health insurance. Her son, tired of working at a local Taco Bell, moved to North Carolina to find a better job.

"We can't get no lower than we are now," she said.