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Hillary ‘too divisive’ to unite voters, says Barack Obama

January 31, 2008

Barack Obama launched his most pointed attack yet on Hillary Clinton yesterday, saying she was too divisive to win back the White House for Democrats.

In a speech to more than 10,000 people in a hockey stadium at the University of Denver - with thousands more in overflowing halls and left waiting outside - Senator Obama said Senator Clinton would be a step back to the past.

He portrayed her as a calculating politician siding with Republicans on the Iraq war - but who would also raise the passion of the Republican base to rush out in November to vote against her.

To win back the White House in November, Senator Obama said Democrats had to "build a majority in Congress not by nominating a candidate who will unite the other party against us, but by choosing one who can unite this country around a movement for change".

"It's not enough to say you'll be ready from day one," he told cheering supporters repeating a line that Senator Clinton uses. "You have to be right from day one."

Senator Obama said he had "opposed this war in Iraq from the start, and I have never, ever wavered in that opposition", noting: "I will do what we should have done back in 2002: increase our commitment to Afghanistan, press Pakistan to take action against terror and finish the fight with al-Qa'ida."

Senator Clinton, who voted for war in Iraq, hit back saying Senator Obama's clear attacks against her meant he was abandoning his promise to maintain a positive campaign.

"That certainly sounds audacious, but not hopeful," said Senator Clinton of Senator Obama's claims to the presidency and a play on the title of Senator Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope. "It's not hopeful and it's not what we should be talking about in this campaign," she said.

Despite Senator Clinton's protestations, her rival's comments are well timed following the near certainty that Arizona senator John McCain will take the nomination for the Republican Party - and is likely to prove the toughest to beat for Democrats.

Senator McCain attracts moderates to his ticket, a fact that worries Democratic party strategists, given what is reckoned to be a ceiling of support for Senator Clinton.

There is general agreement with Senator Obama's analysis that she would unite Republicans and drive out the vote to stop a return of Hillary and Bill Clinton to the White House.

Senator Obama, vying to be the first African-American president, drove home the theme yesterday, saying his candidacy was "about the past versus the future".

"It is time for new leadership that understands the way to win a debate with John McCain or any Republican who is nominated is not by nominating someone who agreed with him on voting for the war in Iraq," he said.

Senator Obama's strike comes as Senator Clinton's campaign has been roiled in recent weeks by charges of race baiting the electorate, particularly in the hotly contested state of South Carolina, where former president Bill Clinton made a series of controversial remarks on the campaign trail for his wife last week.

Senator Clinton was asked about her husband's performance on US television yesterday.

"I think whatever he said … was certainly never intended to cause any kind of offence to anyone," she said.

"If it did give offences, then I take responsibility and I'm sorry about that."

"Can you control him?" asked the interviewer.

"Oh of course," Senator Clinton replied.

Source:  The Australian

Posted by Justin Thyme · Filed Under Hillary Clinton, News 

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