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Obama, Clinton sharpen rhetoric ahead of primary

Senator Barack Obama cast his Democratic presidential rival as a game-player who uses “slash and burn” tactics and will say whatever people want to hear, a sharp jab at her character in the final chapter of the pivotal Pennsylvania primary campaign.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton implored voters on Saturday to look beyond “whoop dee do” speechmaking and take a hard look at who has the know-how to deal with America’s burdens.

“I want everyone thinking,” she declared, as if to suggest those backing Obama are not.

Her implication was clear: She’s substance, he’s flash.

Altogether, the campaign for tomorrow’s contest was dissolving into the sort of acrimony that makes party leaders long for the finish line, before the nominee is damaged in the fall. Obama’s criticisms were direct, while Clinton’s were oblique but unmistakable. At various times in the protracted contest, it has been the other way around.

He pressed the case against her at stop after stop, blunt words set against the bucolic backdrop of his train ride through the Pennsylvania countryside.

For her part, Clinton struck back at a new Obama ad that criticizes her health care plan, telling a rally in York: “Instead of attacking the problem, he chooses to attack my solution.”

The primary tomorrow follows a month-long hiatus in voting.

Party officials known as superdelegates continued drifting toward Obama in that interim, increasing his edge in the race despite his series of gaffes, and that trend is bound to accelerate if he performs strongly tomorrow. Clinton is hoping a decisive win will put a stop to that. Polls have suggested she has a consistent if shrinking lead.

The New York senator struck a somber note about problems at home and abroad as she described the stakes for voters. She asked them to think about the looming challenge of China, the restive Middle East, the trade imbalance and the debt burden.

“I don’t want to just show up and give one of those whoop-dee-do speeches and get everybody whipped up,” she said. “I want everyone thinking.”

As she looked to exploit questions about his gravitas, Obama played on poll findings indicating unease with her veracity, and did so head on, with words that could easily slip into a Republican campaign ad should Clinton become the Democratic contender against Republican Senator John McCain.

“I may not be perfect but I will always tell you what I think, and I will always tell you where I stand,” Obama told a crowd in Wynnewood.

“She’s taken different positions at different times on issues as fundamental as trade, or even the war, to suit the politics of the moment. And when she gets caught at it, the notion is, well, you know what, that’s just politics. That’s how it works in Washington. You can say one thing here and say another thing there,” Obama said.

He amplified the point later.

“Senator Clinton’s essential argument in this campaign is you can’t change how the game is played in Washington. Her basic argument is that the slash-and-burn, say-anything, do-anything special interest-driven politics is how it works ... Senator Clinton has internalized a lot of the strategies, the tactics, that have made Washington such a miserable place,” he said.



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