Democrats Also Skewer Bush and GOP
By Dan Balz and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 11, 2007
DES MOINES, Nov. 10 -- Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) drew sharp contrasts with one another Saturday night at a state party fundraiser over who is best able to lead the Democratic Party in next year's presidential election, less than eight weeks before Iowa's critical January caucuses.
A long night of political oratory that featured the six major Democrats ended with Clinton and Obama, in back-to-back speeches, taking aim at each other. Clinton sought to rebut criticism that she has been vague and calculating in her campaign and, targeting what her aides believe is one of Obama's weaknesses, argued that she has the strength and experience to move the country away from the policies of President Bush.
Obama was even more direct in trying to raise doubts about Clinton as a candidate, saying: "If we are really serious about winning this election, Democrats, then we can't live in fear of losing. This party, the party of Jefferson and Jackson and Roosevelt and Kennedy, has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people when we led not by polls but by principle, not by calculation but by conviction, when we summoned the entire nation to . . . a higher purpose."
The race in Iowa is currently a three-way contest among Obama, former senator John Edwards of North Carolina and Clinton, the national front-runner for the nomination. Most attention Saturday night was focused on the speeches of those three, but Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson used the evening to try to kick-start their candidacies into competition for upper-tier status.
With an estimated 9,000 party activists assembled at Veterans Memorial Auditorium, the candidates also took on Bush and the Republican Party, whom they accused of a misadventure in Iraq, of shredding the Constitution and of ignoring the plight of 47 million Americans without health care insurance.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) served as emcee for the evening.
The Jefferson-Jackson dinner provided the candidates with an opportunity to preview their closing arguments in what is the costliest and most fiercely contested campaigns ever in this state. The event also gave their staffs an opportunity to show off their organizational muscle, transforming the hall with a sea of signs and a wall of sound.
Edwards kicked off the speeches, attacking the Republican presidential candidates as "George Bush on steroids -- more war, more division, more tax cuts for the rich, government for the lobbyists, by the lobbyists." In spirited language, Edwards recalled his history as a trial lawyer in asserting that he is the Democrat best positioned to challenge the power of special interests in the nation's capital.
As a lawyer, Edwards said, he often went into the courtroom to challenge corporations and insurance companies. "I beat them and I beat them and I beat them again, and I will beat those interests as president of the United States," he said.
Richardson opened his speech with a dig at Bush. To loud cheers, he said: "This election is about restoring the American dream . . . waking up one cold January morning in 2009 and seeing a Democrat elected to the White House and George Bush gone forever."
Biden said Bush squandered an opportunity to rally the world behind the United States after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and he added: "As long as we are squandering our credibility, our lives and our treasure in Iraq, no one, no one in the world is prepared to join us and follow our leadership in these other hot spots in the world."
Biden also attacked Republicans in general. "They confuse ideology with morality, and they have their values backwards," he said.
The speeches ran until well past midnight Eastern time, with the candidates' speeches interspersed with remarks from Iowa's elected officials and even an auction to raise funds for the Iowa Democratic Party. When Dodd got his turn at the microphone, with Clinton and Obama still waiting to speak, he joked, "Welcome to breakfast in Des Moines."
But Dodd quickly turned on Bush and the Republicans, saying they are responsible for "a greater assault on the Constitution" than any other administration in history.
Clinton held a narrow lead in an October Iowa Poll for the Des Moines Register, and her rivals recognize that a Clinton victory here in January could start her on a virtually unstoppable march to the nomination. Nevertheless, strategists here said this week that any of the top three candidates could win the caucuses, and all the campaigns were determined to demonstrate their organizational prowess and the passion of their supporters at Saturday's dinner.
The competition among the campaigns began Friday evening with a "sign war," in which young staffers raced one another to commandeer wall space in the auditorium for their candidates' placards. As the auditorium began to fill with people, the candidates' supporters marched through the corridors chanting, beating drums and raising the noise to ear-piercing levels.
Hours before the dinner, Obama staged a boisterous rally that featured R&B singer John Legend and thousands of supporters wearing red T-shirts with the words "I'm fired up" on the front and "He's ready to go" on the back. Those are chants that Obama uses to close his stump speeches, and they have become a rallying cry for his army of volunteers.
Clinton supporters showcased their own T-shirt brigade, parading through the Veterans Memorial Auditorium and Hy-Vee Hall complex wearing yellow shirts that said "Turn up the heat" on the front and "Turn the country around" on the back -- words that Clinton wove through her speech as she called on Democrats to unite to reverse the administration's policies.
Earlier in the day, Edwards attacked Clinton over an incident earlier this week, in which an Iowa college student said the Clinton campaign had encouraged her to ask a question about global warming. Fox News reported Saturday on a second such incident.
Edwards compared Clinton to Bush, who often campaigned in front of pre-screened audiences. "That's what George does: George Bush goes to events that are staged, where people are screened," he said, according to an account on Politico.com. "That's not the way democracy works in Iowa."
Clinton campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee said: "It is not a standard policy of the campaign, and it's not something we'll do moving forward. The senator has no idea who she is calling on when she's answering questions."
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) and former senator Mike Gravel of Alaska were not invited to speak because they are not running campaigns in Iowa.
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