Clinton, Obama trade jabs on, well, trade
CLEVELAND | Both candidates accuse each other of supporting NAFTA
CLEVELAND -- Down in Texas, presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are hitting each other hard on who would keep America safer. But here in rust-belt Ohio, they're slamming each other about who would better protect American jobs.
Clinton and Obama both toured the state Sunday, touting their plans for stopping the bleeding of American jobs that has hit this state hard. Both pledge to add 5 million green-technology jobs to the U.S. economy. Though their proposals are strikingly similar, they each magnify flaws in the other's.
Polls indicate Clinton has a better shot at winning here than in Texas, though both states are close. So, Obama, who hopes to extend his 11-election winning streak, has a hard-hitting commercial here accusing Clinton of supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Obama says sent American jobs out of the country.
"Hillary Clinton supported NAFTA, and I lost my job because of that," a steelworker says on Obama's radio ad. "I just don't think she supports people like me."
Just because her husband passed the free trade bill does not mean she should be accused of supporting it, Clinton has argued. Obama has the support of mayoral brother Bill Daley, who was President Bill Clinton's point man getting NAFTA passed by Congress.
In their last debate, both candidates walked a fine line, saying they did not think they would have to scrap the free trade agreement they blame for sending U.S. jobs to Mexico -- the mere threat of scrapping it should be enough to get Mexico and Canada to agree to renegotiate it, guaranteeing better terms for the United States, they said.
Clinton campaign staffers say an Obama confidant sent a message to the Canadian government not to worry: Obama won't really change NAFTA if elected. Obama staffers said no such "phone call" was made. But it turned out that it was not a phone call - it was a meeting between Obama advisor Austan Goolsbee and Canadian consular officials in Chicago at which NAFTA was discussed.
"We're going to take a hard look at NAFTA, which has a lot of problems," Clinton said. "We're going to renegotiate it."
Clinton focused on "kitchen table" issues such as rising gas prices as she toured industrial towns.
"Instead of holding hands with the Saudis, we need to hold them accountable," Clinton told a crowd of supporters at Garfield High School in Akron. "I think we need a president who actually gets out of the White House and looks at the gas prices."
Clinton told Ohio voters their problems are just like those she deals with in upstate New York.
"In upstate New York, I here the same stories I hear here: factories closing, children leaving home," Clinton said.
"We like Hillary: She's a woman," Marcia Kompanik, 69, a retired school secretary from Mineral Ridge, Ohio, said Sunday. "I think she has the experience and will be able to help us out."
In Texas, where both Clinton and Obama return today, Clinton is airing a hard-hitting commercial showing children asleep in their beds and asking who will keep them safer when the "red phone" rings in the White House at 3 a.m. Obama has a rival ad running saying he would keep those children safer.