Clinton emphasizes national security in Texas campaigning
CAMPAIGN '08
The Democratic presidential candidate, hoping to break Obama's win streak, works the crucial state on the weekend before Tuesday's primary.
FORT WORTH — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton moved through Texas today, reminding supporters just how crucial they will be in deciding the Democratic presidential nominee.
Her rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, has won 11 straight primaries and caucuses. Clinton has seen what had been wide leads in delegate-rich Texas and Ohio evaporate. For the former first lady, Tuesday's Lone Star primary is basically a must win.
"You are, in effect, hiring the next president," Clinton told about 300 volunteers at Fox Technical High School in San Antonio. "What we've got to decide is: Who do you want to hire?"
"You!" the crowd yelled back in unison.
Throughout the day, Clinton sharpened her effort to focus voters on national security, stressing her record on the issue and attacking that of her opponent.
"His entire campaign is based on making a speech in 2002," she said, referring to Obama's much-publicized stance against the invasion of Iraq. "I give him credit for making the speech. But the speech was not followed up by action."
Speaking to reporters, Clinton said her national security resume made her the stronger choice to face presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
"Everyone knows that John McCain will make this election about national security," she said, calling Obama "missing in action" for a Senate vote on Iran as chairman of a subcommittee that deals with NATO's role in Afghanistan. "If you can't have that debate with me, how can you have it with John McCain?"
The Clinton campaign has come under fire for a recent television ad that shows children sleeping, then a phone ringing in the White House, conveying news of an unknown menace. Who would you want to answer the call? it asks.
Obama has criticized the ad, saying it plays on people's fears. Clinton, however, dismissed such concerns at an outdoor rally in Fort Worth attended by more than 1,500 people, some wearing red-and-white "I love Hillary" T-shirts.
"My opponents say it's fear-mongering," she told the crowd. "I don't think people of Texas scare all that easily."
She reminded them of the challenges that will face the next president, saying the country needed "a fighter, a doer and a champion."
"This is a wartime election," Clinton said as police helicopters buzzed overhead. "We have a war to end in Iraq, and a war to win in Afghanistan. . . . We have real enemies, sitting in some cave somewhere, trying to figure out how to hurt us again."
