Pat Dollard

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Washington Times:

Clinton calls Ohio, Texas must-wins

FORT WORTH, Texas — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday that she would “have to win” on Tuesday as the Democratic presidential campaigns revved up their get-out-the-vote efforts on the frenzied days before the big primaries in Texas and Ohio.

The New York senator and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois also exchanged a barrage of criticisms, particularly on trade, while Mrs. Clinton, speaking at a fundraising event in San Antonio, acknowledged the high stakes of the upcoming vote, in which she needs to break an 11-state contest losing streak.

“We have to win on Tuesday,” she said. “That’s not a surprise to any of you. And we are going to win on Tuesday.”

In a speech in Providence, R.I., Mr. Obama accused Mrs. Clinton of pandering to voters, including reversing her position on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is unpopular in Ohio and blamed for some of the state’s widespread job losses.

“If we want real change, we need leaders in Washington who say what they mean and mean what they say,” he said.

“Real change isn’t about changing your position to fit the politics of the moment. And that’s the choice in this election,” he said, accusing Mrs. Clinton of double talk, including the promise of stopping job losses to globalization while backing free-trade deals and saying she would stand up to lobbyists and special interests but then taking their money, and voting for the Iraq war but then saying it was a vote for diplomacy.

“The title of the bill was ‘A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq,’ ” Mr. Obama said mockingly.

The Clinton team responded by casting doubt on Mr. Obama’s credibility on trade, citing reports from Canadian TV that the Obama campaign had told Canada’s ambassador that Mr. Obama’s call to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement was just campaign talk that would not be followed up on.

“If we want real change, we need leaders in Washington who say what they mean and mean what they say,” he said.

“Real change isn’t about changing your position to fit the politics of the moment. And that’s the choice in this election,” he said, accusing Mrs. Clinton of double talk, including the promise of stopping job losses to globalization while backing free-trade deals and saying she would stand up to lobbyists and special interests but then taking their money, and voting for the Iraq war but then saying it was a vote for diplomacy.

“The title of the bill was ‘A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq,’ ” Mr. Obama said mockingly.

The Clinton team responded by casting doubt on Mr. Obama’s credibility on trade, citing reports from Canadian TV that the Obama campaign had told Canada’s ambassador that Mr. Obama’s call to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement was just campaign talk that would not be followed up on.

In Ohio, the Clinton campaign began a push dubbed “88 Counties, 88 Hours to Victory,” which included events in all 88 of the state’s counties in the lead up to the vote. Robby Mook, director of the Clinton campaign in Ohio, said the far-flung schedule reflected Mrs. Clinton’s plan to connect with all voters.

“Ohioans deserve a president who will finally stand up for them,” he said.

Obama campaign officials in Texas say they have signed up nearly 50,000 volunteers, including more than 4,000 precinct captains who are running phone banks and canvassing drives across the state.

In Ohio, the campaign team plans to knock on 1 million doors across the state to push voters to the polls in an effort it’s calling “One Million for Change.” Thousands of campaign workers are hitting the streets from 75 staging locations in the Buckeye State, officials said.

“We’re knocking on a million doors this weekend because this campaign has to be about all of us folks from every community in the state,” said Paul Tewes, the Obama campaign’s Ohio director.

The Clinton campaign had a dozen surrogates appear for her in Ohio yesterday, including former President Bill Clinton in Kirtland and Lakewood, daughter Chelsea Clinton in Akron and former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright in Cincinnati.

The former first lady began her weekend by dropping in to rally backers at a training session aimed at preparing activists from 20 counties for Texas’ complicated system, which involves picking two-thirds of the delegates at stake in a traditional primary, with the other one-third being picked in an evening round of caucuses in the state’s 8,000 precincts.

The process puts a premium on a grass-roots organization, and the Clinton team was spending the weekend preparing 40,000 volunteers on how to take charge of those caucuses and sway voters who may be undecided.

Mrs. Clinton also hit Mr. Obama with a list of criticisms that have become the center of her stump speech, chiding him for purported inexperience, reliance on lofty rhetoric instead of detailed proposals, and not mandating health care coverage for all.

“I want you to know what I will do as president because I don’t want anyone to take a leap of faith with me,” Mrs. Clinton said in a closing argument at the Stockyards historic district in Fort Worth to a crowd of more than 2,000 people. “I don’t want you to say … ‘You sure sounded good, but I don’t have a clue what she will do as president.’ ”

“There’s a big difference between speeches and solutions,” she said, taking another jab at Mr. Obama’s stirring oratory that has helped excite Democratic voters.

Mr. Wolfson made the criticism of a rhetoric gap on other issues as well.

“Real change isn’t attacking lobbyists while utilizing their services throughout your campaign. Real change isn’t voting against a cap on credit card interest rates and opposing a freeze on home foreclosures on subprime borrowers,” Mr. Wolfson said.

“And real change isn’t running away from a debate on national security because you don’t have the strength and the experience to go toe to toe with John McCain,” he said, referring to the presumptive Republican nominee.

Mrs. Clinton repeated that line of attack herself, saying that “everybody knows that John McCain will make this election about national security; that’s a given. If Senator Obama is unwilling to engage me on national security, how is he going to engage Senator McCain?”