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Obama, Clinton teams claw away at each other
As John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, visited Iraq, strategists for Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton exchanged calculated barbs over accountability, ethics and personal attacks.
- AP
- Published: 00:41 March 18, 2008
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Chicago: As John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, visited Iraq, strategists for Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton exchanged calculated barbs over accountability, ethics and personal attacks.
Obama's communications director Robert Gibbs called on Clinton on Sunday to release full post-White House tax returns; disclose all congressional "earmarks", or pet projects she had inserted into spending bills; and to release all documents pertaining to activities of the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Library, including a list of donors.
"What is lurking in those documents?" Gibbs asked as the two campaigns had duelling phone conference calls with reporters. "There are gaps that need to be filled," said senior Obama strategist David Axelrod.
Senior Clinton strategist Mark Penn countered, suggesting the Obama campaign was trying to "deflect public opinion from their losses in Ohio and Texas" and faced overwhelming Clinton strength in Pennsylvania.
"This is a tried and true technique of the Obama campaign that has repeatedly shifted negative when they find the momentum working against them," Penn said.
Iraq visit
While the Democratic camps sparred, McCain, who has linked his presidential hopes to US success in Iraq, was in Baghdad for meetings with Iraqi and US diplomatic and military officials, a US government official said. He was to meet with General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq. It also was thought he would meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.
Closer to home, Obama was heading for Pennsylvania yesterday to campaign, with stops likely in North Carolina and Oregon later in the week. Clinton prepared to give a speech on the Iraq war yesterday in Washington.
Disapproving tone
Meanwhile, in interviews with Chicago newspapers, and during a television appearance and a speech in Indiana, Obama disavowed racially tinged comments by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who was Obama's pastor for nearly 20 years before retiring recently.
Comments by Wright, who has railed against the US and accused its leaders of bringing on the September 11, 2001 attacks by spreading terrorism, have been widely aired on television and the internet.
"If all I knew were those statements I saw on television, I would be shocked," Obama said on Saturday.
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