Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton step up attacks before Pennsylvania primary
Two days before the key Democratic contest, each portrays the other as disingenuous.
READING, PA. — 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."
Obama spoke in a high school gymnasium here before an enthusiastic crowd of about 2,600 people. He took questions after his speech, including one about former President Carter's recent meeting with Hamas leaders. Obama called the meeting a mistake.
Obama faulted Clinton for taking what he described as conflicting positions on the NAFTA free trade agreement. She backed it when her husband was president, Obama said, but distanced herself while campaigning in states where the agreement is unpopular.
In a similar vein, Obama said that Clinton initially supported the Iraq war, but changed her stance when it began to go sour.
He said, "what you can't do is you can't spend a whole bunch of time campaigning on behalf of your husband's NAFTA proposal, and then when you're running for president go around Pennsylvania saying you're opposed to NAFTA. You can't do that!"
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.'
