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LAVEEN, Arizona: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
traded new cross-country salvos in their Democratic feud Tuesday, as
the global financial panic reverberated through the 2008 White House
race.
Though at opposite sides of the
country, the foes cranked up the heat after Monday’s acerbic
presidential debate, while the Democratic race broadened as
potentially pivotal “Super Duper Tuesday” clashes loom on
February 5.
Clinton traveled to California,
as a new poll gave her a double-digit lead in the delegate-rich
western state, then south to Arizona, while Obama anchored himself
in South Carolina, hoping to lock in a morale-boosting win in
Saturday’s primary vote.
The tense Republican race for the
White House, meanwhile, claimed another victim, as former screen
star and conservative senator Fred Thompson pulled out, after a lame
early showing in early primaries.
The surviving pack fought it out
in Florida, ahead of the high-stakes January 29 primary that may be
a make-or-break moment for New York’s former mayor Rudolph
Giuliani.
Before jetting across country to
California to accept the endorsement of the United Farm Workers
union, New York Senator Clinton said Obama was “frustrated” by
her recent wins in Nevada and New Hampshire.
She accused him of making
pre-planned attacks on her in Monday’s debate in South Carolina,
to disguise what she said were contradictions in his own record.
Obama meanwhile upped the battle
with Clinton by accusing her of reversing over the years on issues
including free trade.
But in a campaign memo released
as she flew west, the Clinton team signaled a forensic examination
of her rival’s record.
“While much of this campaign
focused on Senator Obama’s rhetoric, there has not been much
attention paid to Senator Obama’s record,” the memo said.
“Last night that changed. With
the fireworks now receding, it’s time to focus on the
substance.”
Clinton left her husband, former
president Bill Clinton, to slug it out with Obama in South Carolina,
where most polls give the young senator a double-digit lead. But she
said it was unfair to say she had abandoned the state to focus on
battles to come.
She was later to complete her
20-hour swing by traveling to Arizona and then back to the US
capital.
On Wednesday, she plans to hit
New Jersey, also one of the dozen or so states holding a primary on
February 5.
A new Field Poll in California
had Clinton leading Obama among likely Democratic and nonpartisan
voters by 39 to 27 percent, with former senator John Edwards
trailing on 10 percent.
The deepening sense of global
economic doom penetrated the campaign trail.
“This is a global economic
crisis,” Clinton warned shortly after the Federal Reserve sprung a
surprise rate cut that failed to calm market fears that the United
States is recession-bound.
The former first lady argued the
US economy could “very well thrust us into a deep, long
recession,” and repeated her calls for action on a US mortgage
crisis that has rippled worldwide.
Obama expressed hope the Fed’s
75-basis-point rate cut would stem the bleeding, but said “the
fear remains … on the faces of working Americans in every corner
of this country.”
With global markets plunging,
“the world continues to fear that the United States government
won’t do enough to prevent a recession,” he said.
Candidates from Bush’s
Republican party are preaching classic conservative themes of low
taxes and limited government spending.
Having taken a huge gamble by
bypassing the first nominating contests in smaller states, Giuliani
faces a do-or-die challenge in Florida. Only six months ago he was
considered unbeatable for the party’s nomination.
Thompson’s pullout could boost
next-tier candidates fighting for his mantle as the field’s most
conservative candidate: Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
There was worrying news for
Giuliani in a new poll, showing him tied with McCain in his home
state, New York.
The Quinnipiac University survey
had both Giuliani and McCain in a dead heat at 30 percent among
likely Republican voters. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney
trailed in third place with 9 percent.
Another poll released Monday
showed him 12 percent behind McCain after once holding a 33-percent
lead.
--AFP
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