Print

Mail

wiki links

US Democratic hopefuls go all out for crucial poll

Jonnie Taylor, 68, puts a sticker on her jacket at Senator Barack Obama's headquarters in Toledo, Ohio, on Sunday. PHOTO: AFP

US Senator Barack Obama worked to fend off an intensified attack on his foreign policy credentials, while Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to fire up supporters with an economic populist message ahead of races today that could determine the Democratic presidential nominee.

Four states vote today, but the focus is on the big states of Ohio and Texas. Recent polls show Clinton retains a lead in Ohio, although it has been narrowing. In Texas, her once formidable lead has all but vanished and the race is now seen as a dead heat.

Clinton has lost 11 consecutive contests to Obama since Feb. 5 and lags in the nominating convention delegate count.

Most Democratic strategists see Texas and Ohio as must-win states if Clinton is to continue her candidacy, a view also expressed by her husband, former president Bill Clinton.

A total of 370 delegates are at stake in today's primaries in Ohio, Texas and the smaller northeastern states of Vermont and Rhode Island.

Obama's aides said privately that they felt they had a good shot at a win in Texas, but were less certain about Ohio, where they braced for a possible loss. Polls show Clinton leading in Rhode Island, but Obama ahead in Vermont.

"What precise foreign-policy experience is she claiming that makes her qualified to answer that telephone call at 3am in the morning?" Obama asked of Clinton at a town hall meeting in Westerville, Ohio.

It was a reference to dueling TV ads over who would exercise superior judgment in responding to a national emergency in the middle of the night.

Obama highlighted his opposition to the Iraq war during his successful 2002 Senate campaign months before the US-led invasion. He criticized Clinton for failing to read the classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons capabilities, a report available at the time of her October 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq war.

"She didn't give diplomacy a chance. And to this day, she won't even admit that her vote was a mistake -- or even that it was a vote for war," Obama said. "When it came time to make the most important foreign policy decision of our generation, the decision to invade Iraq, Senator Clinton got it wrong."

Clinton also campaigned in Westerville, telling more than 2,000 cheering backers that she wants to solve the economic troubles facing Ohio and other midwestern states.

"For some people this election is about how you feel, it's about speeches," she said. "Well, that's not what it's about for me. It's about solutions."

On the Republican side, the party's presumptive nominee, Senator John McCain, held sizable leads over former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in the polls and was expected to sweep all four contests today.

A strong showing could bring McCain on the verge of securing the 1,191 delegates needed for the party's nomination at its convention in September. McCain has a total of 1,014 delegates, while Huckabee trails with 257.

McCain's nominee-in-waiting status has put pressure on Democratic leaders to bring their party's increasingly negative nominating contest to an end because they fear that a drawn out battle could hurt the party's chances in November.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a former presidential candidate, said the Obama-Clinton "bickering ... is going on too long"and the party needs to quickly decide on its nominee.

"I just think that D-Day is Tuesday," Richardson said on CBS television's Face the Nation while declining to make an endorsement.

"We have to have a positive campaign after Tuesday. Whoever has the most delegates after Tuesday, a clear lead, should be the nominee," he said. "I think we've got to be ready for a very strong John McCain."

This story has been viewed 1044 times.