Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) meant no harm when she said Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) support among “hard-working Americans – white Americans” was weakening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Sunday.

“I am confident that she meant nothing. I think it was taken wrong,” Reid said on ABC's “This Week.”

Clinton adviser Terry McAuliffe also defended Clinton's remarks on CBS's “Face the Nation.” He said Clinton “absolutely” did not mean to imply that African-Americans are not hard-working or that white Americans would not vote for Obama.

Clinton told USA Today this week that Obama's support “among working – hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again" and that "whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

She made the comments after narrowly defeating Obama in the Indiana primary on Tuesday, the same day Obama easily defeated her in North Carolina's primary. Obama was boosted in North Carolina by support from African-American voters, a constituency that has helped him win several states.

The results in those states extended Obama's lead over Clinton in the delegate count and the popular vote, raising pressure on Clinton to end her candidacy.

Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) suggested Clinton misspoke and likely feels “she didn't choose her words very well.” He chalked it up to a grueling campaign.

Edwards, who dropped out of the Democratic contest earlier this year, declined to offer an endorsement, but said he expects Obama will be his party's nominee.

Reid did not pressure Clinton to drop out of the race, which he said has helped his party by increasing Democratic registrations in several states. “I think we have to play this out,” said Reid, who added that Bill Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination in 1992 until June 2, a day before this year's final Democratic primary.

Reid also criticized presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain, calling the Arizona senator a flawed candidate because of his temper and position on the Iraq war.

He also criticized McCain for highlighting a statement by a Hamas leader hoping Obama would win the White House. “I've always expected more out of John than the Karl Rove kind of politics, ” Reid said on “This Week.” “I think that's more Karl Rove than the real John McCain.”

The Republican National Committee quickly responded to Reid. “Harry Reid's attacks on John McCain won't distract voters from the fact that Barack Obama doesn't have the experience or judgment necessary to be commander-in-chief in a time of war,” RNC spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson said in an e-mail.

An Middle East adviser to Obama resigned over the weekend after news reports that he had met with Hamas, according to a report by The Chicago Tribune. Obama has described Hamas as a terrorist group, and said McCain was “losing his bearings” by raising the Hamas leader's statement about Obama becoming president.

Reid also faulted Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the 2004 Democratic candidate, for not campaigning more in rural America. He said Democrats must compete in rural areas to win in 2008, and praised Obama for doing so in Nevada.