Clinton, Obama Exchange Offensives

As if to ready for the primaries in Texas and Ohio, on March 4, Democratic presidential rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are already sharpening their attacks on each other.

Clinton, is lagging behind Obama in the delegates she has won to the national convention to select the Democratic presidential nominee for the November election. She desperately needs wins in Texas and Ohio to continue on the race. Speaking to journalists in Rhode Island, she said, "I'm working as hard as I can." She said, "I have good campaigns in Texas and Ohio and I feel really positive about what's going to happen on March 4."

Clinton initiated attacks on Obama in response to leaflets distributed in Ohio where he criticized his rival's health care plan. She also criticized the Illinois senator for his support, in the past, of the North American Free Trade Agreement. "Nobody believes Senator Obama's plan is universal because it's not. Mine is," she said, adding, "So raise legitimate questions but don't engage in, you know, this kind of false and misleading advertising." She went on to add, "There's a big difference between what is said in that campaign and what is done in that campaign."

Obama, whose ratings have been steadily rising over the past several weeks, retorted that the former first lady's anger was a frustrated campaign tactic. The leaflets, he pointed out, had been distributed some weeks before. Clinton, he reasoned, had not objected then. Clinton responded to this by sayingthat she was under the impression that the leaflets had been taken back following a clarification from her campaign. She said she was surprised to see them with a woman in Ohio. "I thought they'd stopped," she fumed, and added, "They had been discredited and we'd called their hand and I thought they'd stopped, or at least that it would have been revised."

Obama shot back by criticizing Clinton for shifting her stance on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was pushed through by Clinton's husband, the former President Bill Clinton. "Senator Clinton's premise in her candidacy throughout this campaign has been 35 years of experience, including eight years in the White House, right? She has essentially presented herself as co-president during the Clinton years," Obama said. "So the notion that you can selectively pick what you take credit for and then run away from what isn't politically convenient, that doesn't make sense," he added.