L.A Times

The L.A Times is covering the vicious campaigning going on between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The Democratic candidates for president spent Sunday making 11th-hour appeals to Pennsylvania voters in anticipation of Tuesday's primary, and renewing their attacks against each other.

Making what he called his "closing argument," Sen. Barack Obama described rival Hillary Rodham Clinton as disingenuous, saying she revised her positions to suit the tastes of voters.

New York Sen. Clinton, meanwhile, suggested that Obama, and not she, had been clouding the last days of campaigning with negativity, then launched a series of attacks against the Illinois senator.

A strong showing in Pennsylvania's primary by Obama -- victory or a narrow defeat -- could put added pressure on Clinton to drop out of the race.

Polls show Clinton is leading in Pennsylvania by about 5 percentage points.

Obama called his Democratic rival a "tenacious" candidate Sunday, but said she was a product of a flawed political system that she had no ability to change.

"Her basic view about this election is that the 'say anything, do anything' special-interest-driven politics in Washington is how it's got to be," Obama said. "That's how the game is played. And so you should elect her to be the nominee because she has been in Washington longer and she knows how to play the game better. . . . That's the argument."

In a similar vein, Obama said that Clinton initially supported the Iraq war, but changed her stance when it began to go sour.

He added: "You can't say that you're for the war when it's politically popular to be for the war, and then when it becomes unpopular suddenly you say, 'I didn't really vote for the war; I voted for diplomacy.'

"The point is if we're going to bring about real change, we have to be honest with the American people about how that change comes about."


Clinton, in a whirlwind charge across Pennsylvania on Sunday, spoke to a crowd of about 1,000 people packed into the Liberty High School gym in Bethlehem.

"This week we had a debate, and it showed you the choice you have," she said. "No wonder that my opponent has been so negative in these last days, because I think you saw a big difference between us."

She said that she offered leadership and experience, and repeated her charges that Obama "says one thing, but his campaign does another."

The New York senator then made a couple of quick jabs at President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, saying "we just haven't had leadership in these past seven years," before quickly returning to criticism of her Democratic rival.

"It's important to me that this campaign not just be about speeches, the cameras and the lights," she said, "but about what we can be together."

"I was raised by family to say what I mean, and mean what I say," Clinton said. She charged Obama with funding misleading mailers and television ads, specifically regarding healthcare.

"We need to try to achieve universal healthcare, not create political opposition to universal healthcare. That's what the Republicans do -- not what Democrats do."

She also lambasted Obama for saying that Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, would make a better president than Bush.

"We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain," she said, before outlining her policy plans to change the tax code, renegotiate trade agreements and "get tough on China because they're not following the rules."

At the rally, Obama accused Clinton, in turn, of accepting substantial campaign donations from Washington lobbyists whose interests run counter to her stated policy goals. The crowd cheered Obama as he laid out his argument, shouting that Clinton was a "liar."

It is amusing to read the various attacks that the two democratic candidates are making on each other. I guess it is what campaiging is all about but with it being such a close race the claws seem to come out even sharper!

This article just touched on how the two candidates are working to out do one another for the Pennsylvania primary and provided us with quotes from each.

I can't wait to see who wins Pennsylvania!