Obama Extols Community Service

"I just think that the Iowa caucus-goer is looking for an honest and real debate about their issues -- health care, education, how kids are going to finance their way through college, how do we keep jobs here, solving the immigration problem and getting our troops home from Iraq," Obama said in a statement. "If other folks want to engage in those kinds of small-time tactics then that's their prerogative, but that's not what we're going to focus on."

-- Perry Bacon Jr.

ECONOMIC PROPOSALS

Clinton and Edwards Tackle Mortgage Crisis

Two leading Democratic candidates introduced proposals to help stem the national mortgage crisis just as President Bush prepared to unveil his own program on the issue this week.

Hillary Clinton traveled to Wall Street on Wednesday to speak to business leaders and deliver an address describing a litany of economic worries plaguing Americans far from Lower Manhattan -- including rising gas prices, stagnant wages and, most significantly, a housing crisis that she said risks forcing people out of their homes. She also appeared on the business network CNBC for an extended interview about her economic viewpoint with anchor Maria Bartiromo.

Clinton said "these economic problems are certainly not all Wall Street's fault -- not by a long shot."

"But the reality of our interconnected economy is that what happens on Wall Street impacts main streets across America. If we're honest, we need to acknowledge that Wall Street has played a significant role in the current problems," she said, citing a flawed bond rating system and irresponsible lending practices as among the industry's contributions. "Wall Street helped create the foreclosure crisis, and Wall Street needs to help solve it," Clinton said in her speech. She proposed suspending any changes on subprime loans -- often made to borrowers with weak credit -- for five years to avoid new foreclosures caused by adjustable-rate mortgages.

In a similar move, but with an approach his aides said is more sweeping, former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) proposed requiring lenders to help homeowners who have fallen behind on mortgage payments, either by changing adjustable-rate mortgages to fixed-rate ones, lowering interest rates or another method. "Dangerous mortgages have put millions of families in jeopardy of losing their homes," he said in a statement. "It's time for Washington to stop taking care of banks and their lobbyists and act decisively to help regular families."

With the Iowa caucuses nearing, Clinton took time away from campaigning in early-voting states to make her address; her advisers, however, said it is a message that they expect to resonate among middle-class workers in the early-voting states and help bolster her image as a strong, experienced leader.

-- Anne E. Kornblut