Democrats in Intense Battle Before Big Vote
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and JOHN M. BRODER
Published: March 3, 2008
Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama battled over national security and trade in a frantic burst of last-minute campaigning on Monday as Mrs. Clinton accused Mr. Obama of deception as new evidence of discord surfaced within her own camp.
With less than 24 hours to go before voting in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign released a sharp television commercial attacking Mr. Obama for being AWOL from his chairmanship of a Senate oversight committee on the forces fighting in Afghanistan — “he was too busy running for president to hold even one hearing,” the ad said — while Mr. Obama’s campaign counterpunched that Mrs. Clinton had herself missed important hearings on Afghanistan before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.
The day was the latest installment in the riveting drama between two formidable, historic candidates, the first woman to be a serious contender for president and the charismatic young black man who has packed arenas across the country and overtaken Mrs. Clinton in many polls and the delegate count. Showing the intensity of the contest, officials predicted a record turnout among voters in Texas.
Mrs. Clinton, facing calls from some Democrats to get out of the race should she perform poorly on Tuesday after 11 straight losses, appeared almost defiant as she declared at the start of her day in Ohio that “I’m just getting warmed up.”
Then she charged that one of Mr. Obama’s senior advisers had told Canadian officials that Mr. Obama’s opposition to the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, was largely a political tactic, not a serious policy position. Mr. Obama denied that he was sending back-door messages to the Canadians and said the Clinton campaign was “throwing the kitchen sink” at him.
Mrs. Clinton had her own internal problems as reports of dysfunction and finger-pointing rumbled through her operation. In an e-mail sent over the weekend to The Los Angeles Times, Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton’s chief strategist and pollster, appeared to be distancing himself from the campaign’s operations when he told the newspaper that he had “no direct authority in the campaign” and described himself as merely “an outside message adviser with no campaign staff reporting to me.”
Mr. Penn is a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and serves — as he invariably describes himself — as the campaign’s chief strategist. This means that Mr. Penn is involved in directing the message presented by Mrs. Clinton in her speeches and campaign advertisements, and the overall strategic thrusts of the campaign, and often served as the voice of the campaign — appearing on television and giving interviewing pressing Mrs. Clinton’s cause.
Mr. Obama faced continuing questions about his relationship with the developer Antoin “Tony” Rezko, who is now on trial in Chicago and accused of exploiting political relationships with the Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, to obtain millions of dollars in kickbacks on state contracts. Mr. Obama is not implicated in any aspect of the case, but Mr. Rezko has contributed $150,000 over the years to Mr. Obama’s campaigns and helped him purchase a home at the same time that Mr. Rezko bought an adjoining strip of land that he later sold to Mr. Obama.
At a news conference on Monday in San Antonio, Mr. Obama said he had already acknowledged that it was a mistake to buy a home and the adjoining land with Mr. Rezko’s help. “I brought a strip of land on an adjacent property that he had purchased; I have said that was a mistake,” Mr. Obama said. “I have been very open about what I have called a bone-headed move.”
Mr. Obama said there are no allegations that he betrayed the public trust or gave political favors to Mr. Rezko, but he has not disclosed the number of fund-raisers that Mr. Rezko held for him.
Mrs. Clinton has also found itself on the defensive over the Obama campaign’s demands that it release her records as First Lady. On Monday, the National Archives said Mrs. Clinton’s schedules could be released later this month, but asked a judge to delay the release of thousands of her telephone logs for one to two years.
On the Republican side, Senator John McCain and Mike Huckabee also campaigned in Texas on Monday — between them they appeared in Abilene, San Antonio, Waco and Houston — but their race was genteel compared to the angry tone of the Democrats.
At a news conference in Phoenix before leaving for Texas, Mr. McCain, the likely Republican nominee, addressed a host of foreign policy topics, including the Russian election and the attacks on Israel from Gaza. Mr. McCain also called on President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela to withdraw his troops from the Colombian border. |
