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Clinton campaign works to put pressure on front-runner
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 01 - 03 - 2008


Analysts and even supporters of Hillary
Rodham Clinton have said she needs to win two big states
next week to keep her presidential campaign afloat. But her
advisers are seeking to put the burden on front-runner
Barack Obama, saying if he doesn't sweep all four states
Tuesday, it would show Democrats are having second thoughts
about him, reported ap.
Obama's string of 11 victories since the Feb. 5 «Super
Tuesday» contests has raised questions about the viability
of Clinton's candidacy. As recently as Feb. 20, even former
President Bill Clinton pinned his wife's hopes on Ohio, in
the Midwest, and Texas, in the South.
«If she wins in Texas and Ohio, I think she'll be the
nominee,» the former president told a Beaumont, Texas,
audience. «If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she
can be.»
But in an e-mail and conference call to reporters Friday,
Clinton's campaign laid the groundwork to keep her campaign
alive if the results are disappointing Tuesday in the four
states, which also include Rhode Island and Vermont.
Obama has been leading the former first lady in the
popular vote, committed delegates and fundraising. In
Friday's conference call, senior Clinton strategist Howard
Wolfson seized on those facts to reshape expectations about
the Democratic contest.
«They are outspending us at least two to one in Ohio and
Texas,» Wolfson said. «If they are unable to win these
states, it sends a very clear signal that Democrats want
this campaign to continue. Obama has every advantage going
into this election. If Senator Obama is in fact the de
facto nominee, he ought to win all four.»
A loss for Obama in even one of the four states Tuesday
would indicate Democrats have developed a case of «buyer's
remorse,» Wolfson said. «It would show that Senator Obama
is having trouble closing the deal with Democrats.»
However, Bill Clinton's assertion that his wife must win
both Texas and Ohio to keep her campaign alive reflects a
widely held view among political analysts.
Polls now give her a modest lead in Ohio and show Texas is
a toss-up; earlier she had large leads in both states.
The New York senator campaigned with a backdrop of
military leaders Friday in Texas, which has a large
military presence.
She plans to spend Sunday rumbling across Ohio and to
campaign there again Monday morning. Clinton will then
return to Texas for a televised town hall meeting, and
she's purchased airtime to broadcast it across the state.
Obama has announced he'll spend Tuesday night in Texas,
one of the biggest prizes of the campaign. A win in Texas
would allow the Illinois senator to counter the Clinton
campaign's argument that although he's won more states,
she's carried the big states like California, New York and
New Jersey.
On Friday the candidates were tussling over a stark new
Clinton ad, in which she is portrayed as the leader voters
want on the phone when a crisis occurs in the middle of the
night, drawing criticism from Obama that she is trying to
scare the American public.
Clinton's commercial features images of sleeping children
and suggests that voters would be safer with her in charge
when a crisis happens «when your children are safe and
asleep.» The ad was designed to appeal to women voters _ a
core bloc Clinton needs in order to salvage her faltering
campaign in the March 4 races in Texas and Ohio.
In a lightning response, Obama parodied her ad with one of
his own _ the same ominously ringing phone, the sleeping
children, the mood lighting, even the same introduction.
The Obama ad intones: «In a dangerous world, it's
judgment that matters.»
Obama argued that when Clinton had her «red phone
moment,» as he put it in a speech earlier in the day, she
voted in the Senate for the war in Iraq, while he stood
against the war from the start.
Clinton's foreboding ad prompted an immediate denunciation
from Obama, who said it is meant to scare people. Clinton
later told a rally, «I don't think Texans scare very
easily.»
Clinton referred to Obama's new commercial during a rally
in San Antonio, Texas, on Friday night, noting that he's
neglecting real duties.
«He was given an important responsibility in the Senate
to chair a committee with responsibility for NATO,» said
Clinton. «He didn't hold one substantive meeting.»
Clinton, a second-term senator, is aiming to become the
first woman president, casting herself as the candidate
with the years of service needed to take command on her
first day in the White House. Obama, a first-term senator
who hopes to be the first black U.S. president, is seeking
to chip away at those arguments by suggesting he would have
superior judgment.


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