ELKO — The Clinton campaign hosted a conference call earlier to slam Sen. Barack Obama on his comments praising President Reagan in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal. (That paper endorsed him today; Clinton nabbed the Sun endorsement.)

They pointed reporters to this one-liner in a You Tube clip, where Obama says: "I think it's fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10 to 15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."

Clinton supporter Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) opened the call to say he was "stupefied" by the Obama remarks.

"This kind of explicit endorsement of Ronald Reagan baffles me," he said, deploring Reagan's record on gay rights and women's rights and calling him "a dedicated right winger in every aspect."

The others on the call said Obama is mischaracterizing Reagan's ability to communicate, and said Reagan's defunding of mental institutions led to a major rise in the homeless population.

But here is a longer clip where Obama explains his reasoning.

He tells the Gazette-Journal editorial board that Reagan "changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not."

"He tapped into what people were already feeling … [wanting] clarity … optimism … a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing," he said.

Clinton wasn't the only one who noticed.

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina put out a statement calling Obama "frightfully" wrong in his assessment.

"The breadth of change Ronald Reagan brought was crippling for millions of Americans with the two worst recessions since the Depression, a complete disregard for the rights of American labor, and tax cuts that lined the pockets of the richest Americans at the expense of fiscal sanity and the well-being of the most vulnerable in our society," Edwards said.

"Senator Obama may have been more interested in contrasting Reagan with Bill Clinton, but it shows particularly bad judgment to suggest this is the kind or even the breadth of change Americans want. Instead of lauding Ronald Reagan, Senator Obama would do better to remember that it was presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy who helped move this country forward," he said.

UPDATE/ 2:15 Pacific Time: Team Obama held a conference call with supporters calling it "politics as usual."

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said "I don't think it's debatable" that Reagan changed the nation and called the Clinton campaign's complaints a "distortion" and "petty."

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) said both he and Obama disagree with most of Reagan's policy, and said the Clinton premise that Obama is embracing Reagan is "foolish."

"Senator Obama is arguing ... that in order to unite the country we need to increase the size of the tent of the Democratic Party," Wexler said, adding that just like the late president created Reagan Democrats in the 1980s, Obama is creating "Obama Republicans and Obama independents."

— Christina Bellantoni, national political reporter, The Washington Times