Contenders clash on Obama use of PAC fund

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and her campaign Sunday escalated their criticisms of White House rival Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), asserting he improperly used his HOPEFUND political action committee to further his presidential bid, a charge he strongly denied.

In Des Moines, Obama brushed aside allegations Clinton's communications chief, Howard Wolfson, made on CBS' "Face the Nation," where he sparred with Obama chief strategist David Axelrod. Wolfson called HOPEFUND a "slush fund" that skirted campaign finance laws.

At a press conference, Obama said Clinton's campaign is making the allegations out of fear: "Folks from some of the other campaigns are reading the polls and starting to get stressed," but everything done by the fund "is in exact accord with the law."

Obama said he did not shut down HOPEFUND when he launched his presidential campaign because "we just simply did not have the ability to get all the money out." He said Hopefund even made "contributions to people who are endorsing" Clinton.

The issue is heating up as a Des Moines Register poll put Obama in the lead for the first time, though the race in the Jan. 3 caucus state is still a statistical deadlock among Clinton, Obama and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.).

Later Sunday, in Cedar Rapids, Clinton made the allegations herself, AP reported. ''It's beginning to look a lot like that ... where somebody who runs on ethics and not taking money from certain people has found out you have at least skirted if not violated FEC rules and used lobbyists and PAC money to do so,'' she said.

Clinton said HOPEFUND "had lobbyist money, it had PAC money, and they were more than happy to take that money and use it to try to influence elections and create relationships with people while he was running for president.''

One of the main themes of the Obama campaign is his refusal to take money from federal lobbyists and PACs for his presidential war chest.

The dispute was triggered by the Nov. 15 filing of the latest HOPEFUND report, which revealed the committee -- which has accepted contributions from federal lobbyists and PACs -- made donations to Democrats in the early voting states Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as well as to other Democrats.

Such PACs are not supposed to bankroll presidential bids. Stories in Congressional Quarterly and the Washington Post suggested Obama walked up to -- and may have crossed -- a legal line. HOPEFUND and Clinton's HILLPAC were used to pay for some early White House testing-of-the-water expenses.

Hunter reported from Des Moines and Sweet from Washington.