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Clinton: Obama Mailings Are Deceptive
   posted 1:48 pm Sat February 23, 2008 - CINCINNATI
Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that a pair of mailings sent to voters by rival Barack Obama's campaign criticizing her health care plan and trade views are false, misleading and a betrayal of his pledge to practice a new style of politics. "Shame on you, Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public - that's what I expect from you," Clinton said angrily, waving the mailings in the air.
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"Meet me in Ohio, and let's have a debate about your tactics," she added.

The two candidates will meet in a televised debate in Cleveland Tuesday.

ABC 7 News myTAKE - What's Your Opinion? Clinton spoke to reporters after an early morning rally at Cincinnati Technical College, one of several events she has held across Ohio this week. After losing eleven straight contests to Obama since Super Tuesday, the former first lady is banking on a strong showing in both Ohio and Texas on March 4 to save her fading candidacy.

With so much on the line and the clock ticking, Clinton ripped into Obama much more directly and forcefully than she has in the past.

"Enough about the speeches, and the big rallies, and then using tactics right out of Karl Rove's playbook. This is wrong and every Democrat should be outraged," Clinton said.

Clinton advisers have repeatedly criticized the Obama campaign's health care mailing, which says her plan for universal coverage would "force" everyone to purchase insurance even if they can't afford it. Her plan does require everyone to be covered, but it offers tax credits and other subsidies to make insurance more affordable.

Obama's plan does not include the so-called "individual mandate" for adults, and he has argued that people cannot be required to buy coverage if they can't afford it. However, his plan does mandate parents buy health insurance to cover children.

The second mailing, on North American Free Trade Agreement, quotes a 2006 Newsday article suggesting Clinton believed the agreement had been a "boon" to the economy. NAFTA and other trade agreements are extremely unpopular in Ohio, which has suffered an exodus of blue-collar jobs to other countries in part due to such agreements.

It's a particularly sensitive matter for Clinton, whose husband championed and passed the agreement as president. She is counting on the support of white, working class voters in the state.

"I am fighting to change NAFTA," she insisted. "Neither of us were in the Senate when NAFTA passed. Neither voted one way or the other."

The New York senator said Newsday had "corrected the record" about her views on the agreement. The paper published a follow-up item last year saying the word "boon" had been their "characterization of how we best understood her position on NAFTA, based on a review of past stories and her public statements."

As evidence of their concern about the issue, the Clinton campaign released two new ads in Ohio, one featuring former Senator John Glenn, saying Clinton would fight to fix trade agreements like NAFTA.

Clinton pushed back on questions about how her campaign had burned through nearly $130 million, only to be vastly outspent by Obama on ads and organization in several key states.

She also denied having overspent on campaign consultants. Financial reports published this week showed she had paid $7.5 million to the consulting firm of her senior strategist and pollster, Mark Penn. Clinton's top media adviser, Mandy Grunwald, was paid more than $2 million to produce ads.

"Our money goes to directly communicating with voters. That's where the money goes," Clinton said.

She added that she felt good about her prospects in Ohio and Texas but refused to say whether she needed to win both states to stay in the race.

"Let's let the people of Ohio vote. Let's actually have an election and then we can look at the results," she said.

Written By BETH FOUHY
Latest Comment on Clinton: Obama Mailings Are Deceptive
JTSpangler
If she's going to mandate health insurance for 40 million uninsured, it's only fair to mandate auto insurance for 20 million unlicensed illegal immigrants, right?

     
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