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High noon for Obama vs Clinton in Texas, Ohio (1st Lead)
Mar 4, 2008, 14:38 GMT
Illinois Senator and US Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama addresses the crowd during his \'Stand For Change Rally\' at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, USA, 03 March 2008. EPA/AARON M. SPRECHER
Washington - Voters in the large states of Ohio and Texas poured into churches and schools, civic centers and gymnasiums Tuesday to weigh in on presidential nominations, with all eyes on the contest between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as they battle it out for the Democratic Party nod.
Voters in the smaller states of Rhode Island and Vermont were also casting ballots, while Republican Senator John McCain was expected to tighten an already vise-like grip on his party's nomination.
Obama and Clinton have dominated front pages and top broadcast billing with their every step and stumble under a microscope in these late stages of their unprecedentedly close intra-party race.
Clinton's charges in a debate that she was subjected to more media scrutiny prompted one of the nation's favourite political satire shows, Saturday Night Live, to portray famous television journalists fawning over Obama.
Clinton, a former first lady and two-term US senator, has been hammering the issue of national security and Obama's lack of experience.
A television ad from Clinton's campaign shows sleeping children, then asks whom viewers would want to be in the White House when the phone rings at 3 am.
Within hours, Obama had a similar ad on the air, showing uncannily similar sleeping children, asking a similar question, and answering that the people want someone who would not have voted to give US President George W Bush authority to invade Iraq.
Obama's criticism of Clinton has centred on her 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq war, coupled with his argument that she's too much of a political insider in a country that wants change.
In turn, Obama has been criticized by Clinton - and even from the White House - for his declared willingness to meet with leaders of hostile nations.
'This is going to be a campaign about national security,' Clinton said at a recent campaign stop, her voice hoarse. 'If Senator Obama doesn't want to debate me about national security, how is he going to debate (McCain) about national security?'
Obama has been outdistancing Clinton in raising campaign money and has increasingly outspent her. He has spent about 15.3 million dollars on TV advertising since early February in Texas and Ohio, compared to Clinton's 8 million dollars in ads for Tuesday's major states, The New York Times reported.
If Clinton fails to win both Ohio and Texas, pundits believe Obama will seal the Democratic nomination on Tuesday.
Obama has won the last 10 state contests, giving him a significant lead in the battle for delegates to the centre-left Democratic Party's nominating convention in August. Even former president Bill Clinton has said that his wife must win both Ohio and Texas for her campaign to remain viable.
Obama and Clinton have crisscrossed both Texas and Ohio over the last two weeks as they traded accusations over trade, health care policy and who can bring change to Washington, and recent polls have shown that Tuesday's result is anyone's guess. Obama holds a slight edge over Clinton in Texas while Clinton has a small lead in Ohio.
The smaller, north-eastern states of Vermont and Rhode Island are also set to vote on Tuesday.
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March 03, 2008 7:24 PM
ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: In Chicago today is the first day of Tony Rezko's federal corruption trial and in San Antonio, presidential candidate Barack Obama was grilled about his relationship with the indicted real estate developer.
Sen. Obama, D-Ill., went through the motions repeating point blank details that were already known about their controversial history, 'Tony Rezko was a friend, and supporter of mine for many years. He was a well known business man in the community, as you’re aware of, he supported not just me, but many democrats and republican. He is now in trouble and is on trail for federal corruption charges. Those charges are completely unrelated to me and I don't think anyone disputes that. What is also true is that I entered into a real estate transaction with him, I bought a strip of land at an adjacent property that he had purchased and I said that that was a mistake because at that point there was already a cloud over Tony Rezko’s head.'
Obama said that he has returned all the money, that he can identity, that has been raised by Rezko for his campaign. He admitted that he made an error, as he has in the past.
Obama disputed the claim that there hasn't been much transparency about this issue and referenced a press conference with Chicago reporters as evidence, a meeting which happened over two years ago in 2006 before he was a presidential candidate, 'I took every question. I was there until everybody had satisfied their questions. So I mean, I just want to make that point an issue. You may still have questions, which I’m happy to answer, but I don’t think it’s fair to suggest somehow that we’ve been trying to hide the ball on this.'
Then the specific questions came. When asked twice about fundraisers, with details, who was there and how many, Obama did not answer.
'What happens is these requests I think can just go on forever and so at some point what we've just tried to do is respond to what's pertinent to the question that had been raised.[snip]
Obama said that several hundred stories have been written about this and turned the argument around on his opponent, Hillary Clinton, chalking this up to political tactics this close to the election, 'I understand you know, that this is a hot story at this point because there's a convergence of a trial unrelated to me and the fact that I'm a presidential candidate…. if there’s something additional other than the fact that he’s gone on trial and the Clintons campaign have decided to make this a theme in the last couple of days, I’m happy to answer specific questions.'
After about ten questions in a fifteen minute press avail. As he walked away from the podium a slew of questions were barreled at him. He said he was late and had already taken numerous questions.
But a slew of specific questions yielded few new answers from the Senator, just one day before the March 4th primaries, although he claimed, 'I’ve been very open that I called it a boneheaded move.'
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'CHANGE' doesn't tell you if it is good or bad...Mar 4th, 2008 - 21:20:17
OBAMA: 'Changey change hope change, changie change change hope.'
Glassy eyed Obamatards: 'Yes we can, drool... Yes we can... '
OBAMA: 'Not only that... Hopey hope hope change, Change hope, change hope!
Glassy eyed Obamatards: 'Yes we can, drool... Yes we can... '
Ever ask yourselves if you 'should' rather then if you 'can'?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xtNr5-up0U
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