Clinton swings through Nevada

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton threw some subtle and not-too-subtle jabs at her main Democratic rival during a campaign swing through Nevada on Saturday while courting Latino voters and pledging to help financially troubled homeowners in a state that will host the first major political bout in the West.

Clinton bristled when an undecided voter asked whether she had grown too cozy with Washington lobbyists to offer true healthcare reform, and she mocked Sen. Barack Obama for constantly “railing against lobbyists.” She said she had fought harder for healthcare reform and taken on “more special interests than everybody I’m running against put together.” She added that Obama’s Nevada campaign is “run by lobbyists.”

It was the first of a few digs she took at Obama while holding a forum on the foreclosure crisis at Bertha Miranda’s Mexican Restaurant in Reno, where she arrived after a quick rally with Latino supporters at a Las Vegas union hall.

The Obama campaign dismissed Clinton’s remarks as at best misleading and said he had successfully fought for ethics and lobbying reform in Washington as a senator from Illinois and as a state lawmaker.

Clinton heard tale after tale from Nevada homeowners swamped in debt because of sub-prime loans and suspect lenders and mortgage brokers. She used the event to promote her proposed economic stimulus package as a lifeline to those caught in the mortgage crisis.

“The housing market is in the emergency room, and it’s going to bleed to death,” Clinton said. “And it’s going to have impacts far beyond the direct victims of our mortgage foreclosures.”

Attendees at the Reno campaign stop were quick to quiz Clinton on other issues, including grants for college students and universal healthcare.

After describing her proposal to extend the healthcare benefits provided to members of Congress to all Americans who don’t have coverage and to allow people with insurance to keep it if they choose, she ripped Obama’s proposed healthcare reforms as ill conceived. She said his plan could leave as many as 15 million people without insurance, calling it a calculated attempt to avoid criticism for proposing universal healthcare.

“You can’t tell me that was not for political reasons,” Clinton said.

The Obama campaign said his plan would do more to lower healthcare costs than any plan proposed by the other candidates, and it would not require people to buy insurance that they could not afford.

Later, during a meeting with reporters, Clinton was asked about comments made by Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), who was critical of Clinton’s remarks concerning the roles of President Johnson and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement.

In an interview Monday on Fox News, she said: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964… . It took a president to get it done.”

Clyburn expressed disappointment in her remarks in Friday’s New York Times.

Clinton accused the Obama campaign of twisting her comments.

“I regret the way that this matter has been used,” she said in Reno. “The comments about it are baseless and divisive.”

The Obama campaign said it was ridiculous to believe that Obama had any control over the comments made by Clyburn.

Nevada holds its caucuses Saturday.

phil.willon@latimes.com