Clinton doubts Obama on natl security
Posted: Saturday, March 01, 2008 2:18 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ’s Athena Jones
IN THE SKY OVER TEXAS, MARCH 1 -- Clinton feels good about her prospects in Texas despite the state's intricate process for awarding delegates based on both primary and caucus results.
"We feel really good about it. We are training people," she told reporters on her campaign plane Saturday afternoon. "We are recruiting precinct captains. We feel good about it."
"I feel good about our campaigns and about what people are focusing on now. The kind of questions that are being asked, but obviously people have to be given a chance to vote and that hasn't happened yet.”
The New York senator said she had been focusing on Texas since last spring as part of a strategy of winning the big states. This was an interesting comment because a few weeks ago, she told reporters that grown men were crying over trying to figure out the Texas process. When reminded about those comments, she said they had known about the process, but that the primary is what most people paid attention to. (Note: In a Feb. 18 press conference on the plane before taking off from Madison, Wis., Clinton was asked to explain to the press how Texas' delegate allocation worked. Her response: "I have no idea. I mean, I've got people trying to understand it as we speak...Grown men are crying over trying to understand it," she joked. "I had no idea how bizarre it was until, you know, we had to start figuring it out.")
Polls show the race is tight in Texas and Ohio. Clinton would not comment on the "buyer's remorse" argument her camp put forward in a conference call Friday. Top aides said any loss by Obama on Tuesday would be a sign of voter dissatisfaction with the candidate, despite his having won 11 contests in a row.
She declined to answer whether she needs victories in both Ohio and Texas, despite the fact that her husband and others have said she has to win both to stay in the race
Clinton said she would continue to stress national security Obama, calling it a "defining issue" in the election with McCain as the Republican nominee and issuing a challenge a day after a fierce back and forth over a Clinton ad called "Children" that Obama's camp called an attempt to appeal to people's fears.
"If Sen. Obama is unwilling to engage me over national security, how is he going to engage Sen. McCain?" she said, before going on to highlight the support she'd gotten from members of the military.
Clinton's ad asks people to ask themselves who they would want answering the phone at 3 am in the White House in the event of a crisis, implying her Democratic rival wasn't up to the task. She was asked when she had had that "red phone" experience.
"I was involved in a lot of the decisions that were made,” Clinton said, “but again you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. No one who hasn't been president has ever done that, so that's not the question.
“The question is what have you done over the course of a lifetime to equip you for that moment, and I think you'll be able to imagine many things Sen. McCain will be able to say. He's never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Sen. Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.”
When asked why she should be trusted to run the White House after suffering a series of problems during her campaign, like running out of money and replacing top staffers, Clinton said McCain had faced challenges too, that campaigns were organic and evolving and that she was very proud of her campaign.
In response to reports the Obama camp played down his criticism of NAFTA with Canadian officals, she called it "disturbing that he would say one thing in Ohio and then have his camp send a private signal to a foreign government, which is representing exactly the opposite of what he's been saying in Ohio" and called it part of a pattern that deserved closer examination.
The senator reiterated her willingness to opt out of NAFTA if Canada and Mexico won't renegotiate. It's a position that has caused some alarm among economists and some Democrats who argue the opt out threat is bad for America's reputation in the world and say the trade agreement has been good for the American economy.
*** UPDATE *** The Clinton campaign is sending this video around. Question: Might the RNC use this if Obama becomes the nominee?
