Obama Ratchets Up Criticism of Clinton
New Yorker 'Ducking' Social Security Issue

By Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 28, 2007

Sen. Barack Obama yesterday slammed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for "ducking the issue" of ensuring the solvency of Social Security and signaled that he will take a more aggressive approach to the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

At an event in Des Moines, Obama (D-Ill.) characterized Clinton's approach to addressing the issues as "You should hedge, dodge and spin, but at all costs, don't answer."

The statements marked the latest escalation of campaign rhetoric from a candidate who earlier this year declined to criticize his chief opponent for the nomination. Increasingly, he is taking on not just Clinton's policy views but also her character, and is casting the Democratic front-runner as someone who makes decisions based on polls and calculation, rather than on her convictions.

To emphasize this theme, Obama, who trails Clinton (D-N.Y.) by a wide margin in national polls, was introduced at the event by Tod Bowman, a Democrat and high school teacher in Maquoketa, Iowa. He said Clinton ducked his question about Social Security at an event this month.

"It made me wonder: If a candidate won't answer a question on the campaign trail, how can we be sure she'll be honest with the American people when they're president?" Bowman said at an event at a senior citizen center in Des Moines.

Clinton's aides counter that Obama has also failed to offer a detailed plan to address Social Security's solvency.

"Senator Clinton has been clear and consistent about her position on Social Security," spokesman Phil Singer said. "As president, her first priority will be restoring fiscal responsibility and fair tax policies, and then will work in a bipartisan process to address Social Security's long-term challenges."

This argument and Obama's tone in taking on Clinton are a clear shift. Last month, his aides said he would focus on policy differences with Clinton.

But in recent weeks, Obama has poked fun at Clinton, an Illinois native, for not answering a question in a debate about whether she would cheer for the New York Yankees or the Chicago Cubs if they both made the World Series, and he has criticized "triangulation and poll-driven politics," a reference to Bill Clinton's attempts to capture the center during his administration. In his attacks against Hillary Clinton, Obama only this month has begun regularly uttering the words "Senator Clinton," rather than criticizing "the Washington establishment" or unnamed others.

"There's a whole range of issues she has been less than forthcoming, and she's made a judgment that this is a good political strategy," David Axelrod, Obama's chief political adviser, said yesterday.

In an interview with the New York Times that will be published today, Obama himself made a similar criticism.

"Now, it's been very deft politically," he told the Times of Clinton's strategy. "But one of the things that I firmly believe is that we've got to be clear with the American people right now about the important choices that we're going to need to make in order to get a mandate for change, not to try to obfuscate and avoid being a target in the general election."

Obama's critiques of Clinton come as his campaign -- once carried by enthusiasm, as illustrated by huge crowds and prodigious fundraising -- is increasingly beset by a perception that it has stalled. With Clinton in command of the lead in polls, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights activist who had praised Obama earlier this year and talked excitedly about the promise of the first black president, this month stunned Obama's aides by saying he will back Clinton. And late last week, Robert Farmer, a veteran Democratic fundraiser who was on Obama's national finance team, moved to the Clinton camp.

Axelrod said Obama's increasingly pointed comments represent a "natural evolution" as the primary season approaches, rather than a strategic reversal.

Obama, who said he did not want to "knee-cap" Clinton, is still careful in his criticism, not mentioning Whitewater or other 1990s Clinton controversies, which another rival, former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.), has not shied away from addressing.

The Times reported that Obama said Clinton is "an admirable person" and "a capable senator," while suggesting that she would struggle to win a general election.

"If Hillary Clinton is the nominee, then we have a repetition of 2000 and 2004," he said. "There's no change in the political map. I'm not making predictions specifically about which way Ohio or Florida will go, but what you do know is that 45 percent of the country will be on one side and 45 percent of the country will be on the other. . . . There's not going to be an expansion of the electorate. I don't think anybody would claim that Senator Clinton is going to inspire a horde of new voters. I don't think it's realistic that she is going to get a whole bunch of Republicans to think differently about her."

Singer pointed to Clinton's strong performance in her two Senate victories in New York as evidence that she would be a winning candidate if she got the nomination.

"Senator Clinton beats each of the leading Republicans in poll after poll, because voters know she has the strength and experience to end the war, reform health care and get our economy back on track," Singer said. "She's got a proven track record of getting things done in the Senate by working with Democrats and Republicans."

Clinton, Obama and the rest of the Democratic field will meet in a debate Tuesday night in Philadelphia.