Democratic Candidates Trade Gibes Across Ohio

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Candidates Push for March 4 Votes

Sens. Barack Obama, (D-Ill.), and Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-N.Y.), campaign hard ahead of primaries on Tuesday, March 4, in Ohio and Texas, contests that could make or break Clinton's campaign. Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain, (R-Ariz.) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also make last-minute pitches to voters in the two states.

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"Now in the last few days, Senator Clinton goes running around telling people that the entire campaign, according to her, is only based on the fact that I gave a speech in opposition to the war in Iraq from the start," Obama said. "That that is the only basis of my campaign, and on the other hand she has, supposedly, all this vast foreign policy experience."

He continued, "I have to say that when it came to making the most important foreign policy decision of our generation, the decision to invade Iraq, Senator Clinton got it wrong."

Obama then revived last year's disclosure that Clinton had cast her 2002 authorization vote without reading the 90-page classified National Intelligence Estimate. The document raised concerns serious enough that it prompted then-Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who was chairman of the committee with intelligence oversight at the time, to vote against the war.

"I don't know what all that experience got her, because I have the experience to know that . . . if the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee says, 'You should read this, this is why I voted against the war,' then you should probably read it," Obama said.

Clinton, meanwhile, plans to continue her focus on the economy, and scheduled a 4:30 a.m. visit on Monday to a Chrysler plant in Toledo as the shifts are changing, before flying to Texas. Among the events on her schedule are an interactive town hall meeting Monday night and a satellite appearance on Comedy Central's "Daily Show With Jon Stewart." Over the weekend, she flew to New York for a surprise appearance on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," part of a frenetic late push to revive her candidacy.

Sunday, her advisers cast a wide net in their continuing assault on Obama, hammering questions about his experience as well as his ties to a real estate magnate, Tony Rezko, who goes on trial Monday in Chicago. Clinton officials held a 45-minute conference call Sunday to highlight testimonials from former military officers, chief among them retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, about her national security credentials.

In Akron, Clinton tied together the economy and national security issues, saying the region's economic downturn has a potential impact on defense technology.

"We used to own the night, in the American military, because we created night vision," Clinton said. "Now we don't own it anymore -- we just rent it." She said trade secrets and intellectual property have been shipped offshore, along with manufacturing jobs, creating fresh threats to national security.

At rallies throughout her final day in Ohio, Clinton stressed her fighting spirit. "For every problem, there's a solution in America," she said.

To make sure no one missed the point that she is waging a battle to the end, Clinton was introduced at a rally near Youngstown by Kelly Pavlik, a middleweight boxing champion and Youngstown native. Clinton said her husband, former president Bill Clinton, had described Pavlik as "another Comeback Kid" for the way he won his title. She said Pavlik could serve as an example to a region that has been battered economically. But the words applied equally to her own situation heading into Tuesday's showdowns with Obama.

"You know, in life, you get knocked down from time to time," she said. "Sometimes, well, you don't know it's coming." She recalled the day that the steel plant in Youngstown was locked up and the workers lost their jobs, but said she has been struck in her travels across Ohio the past two weeks by the resolve of people to rebuild the economy and their own lives. "I have seen in the last weeks the resilience and the grit and the determination of the people in Youngstown and across Ohio," she said.

Staff writer Dan Balz, with the Clinton campaign in Ohio, contributed to this report.