Clinton mocks Obama's credentials
WACO, Texas –- Surrounded by veterans, Sen. Hillary Clinton today tried to project an image of a strong commander-in-chief while mocking the credentials of her chief White House rival, Sen. Barack Obama.
“There’s a big difference between delivering a speech at an anti-war rally as a state senator and picking up that phone in the White House at 3 a.m. in the morning to deal with an international crisis,” Clinton said. “There’s a difference between making a speech when you have no responsibility and having to step up and take charge.”
The former first lady unveiled her new television commercial, which will air in Texas. It shows children peacefully asleep in bed and asks who will keep them safer when a phone rings in the White House at 3 a.m., delivering news of a potential threat to national security.
“I … understand completely what it means when that phone rings at 3 am,” Clinton told a crowd of 1,500 at the Waco Convention Center. “There isn’t any time to convene your advisors, to do a survey of what will or will not be popular. You have to make a decision.”
Pressed on whether Hillary Clinton ever answered the “red phone” during her eight years as first lady, her campaign manager Howard Wolfson conceded in a conference call today that neither Clinton nor Obama had ever been president.
Likewise courting veterans, Obama, today, said that Clinton was using fear to try to scare up votes with the ad.
“We’ve had a red phone moment,” Obama said. "It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer.”
Clinton told the Waco crowd the ad was fair.
“Sen. Obama says that if we talk about national security in this campaign we’re trying to scare people,” she said. “Well I don’t think people in Texas scare all that easily. The American people aren’t afraid of the challenges and dangers we face in the world. They want a president with the strength and wisdom to take those challenges and dangers head-on.”
Clinton was introduced at the rally by retired General Wesley Clark, who said, “The phone rings and we’ve got to have the right person answer that phone.
“Hillary Clinton has studied foreign affairs. She has seen it first-hand. I guess she has been on that bedside when the phone rang at 4 o’clock in the morning.”
Clinton’s campaign rejected comparisons to the famous commercial Lyndon Johnson’s campaign ran in the 1960s with a little girl holding a daisy as a clock ticked to nuclear Armageddon.
“This is not at all like the [daisy] ad -- it envisions basically the apocalypse, that is not what the [Clinton] ad does,” Wolfson said.
Clinton once held a commanding lead over Obama in Texas, but the polls now show him slightly ahead. Obama’s campaign has argued that she needs lop-sided wins in Texas and Ohio Tuesday to stay in the race.
Wolfson offered a different spin, saying that unless Obama wins all four states voting Tuesday, including Vermont and Rhode Island, then Democratic voters are beginning to show “buyers’ remorse” about letting him win the last 11 consecutive primary votes.
After Clinton’s speech pledging more benefits for veterans, uniformed naval reserve officer David Love, 19, of Waco, said he might be inclined to vote for her Tuesday.
“Clinton sounds pretty strong,” he said. “I like what she had to say about better pay and benefits. I’m supposed to go to Iraq in 2010. I wouldn’t mind not going.”
Despite the “Hillary” button on his shirt, Brett Mackay, 19, a Baylor University student from Van, Texas, said he planned to vote for Obama.
“I’ve never felt this way about a candidate before – people are so polarized, and I really believe he can bring us together,” Mackay said.