WASHINGTON (AFP) – Hillary Clinton, bristling from a debate brawl with Democratic foe Barack Obama, took her 2008 campaign onto the national stage Tuesday, targeting delegate-rich states which may decide the nomination.
Senator Obama meanwhile was anchoring himself in South Carolina, hoping to lock in victory in Saturday’s next White House nominating clash, where most polls give him a double digit lead by dominating the African-American vote.
Divergent travel plans revealed sharply different tactics of the two rivals, as their struggle careened to a testy climax ahead of a flurry of nearly two dozen state nominating elections on “Super Tuesday” February 5.
Clinton arrived back in Washington early Tuesday after the debate clash with Obama in South Carolina, and plotted a cross-continental, 20-hour campaign swing through California, Arizona and back to the US capital.
On Wednesday, she is expected to return to New Jersey, which holds another key February 5 contest.
Obama planned a flurry of events in South Carolina, a must-win contest for him as so far he has been unable to repeat his leadoff Iowa win, coming in second instead to the New York senator in both New Hampshire and Nevada.
Amid a global financial market panic Tuesday that prompted an unprecedented 75 basis-point rate cut by the Federal Reserve, Obama was planning a major address on the economy.
But Clinton took an early lead warning that the US economy was set for a “deep, long” recession without immediate action. “This is a global economic crisis,” she said, urging President George W. Bush to quickly convene his working group on financial markets, and blaming bloated US federal government spending for the contagion.
Republicans meanwhile fired new shots in an engrossing battle over Florida, which holds a pivotal primary on January 29, with Senator John McCain, victor in South Carolina on Saturday, hoping to grab the role of as confirmed front-runner.
Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani is fighting to keep alive his ebbing campaign, having taken a huge gamble on the large February 5 states, while Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee targetted the state’s conservative bloc.
Clinton denied she was writing off South Carolina, saying her husband former president Bill Clinton will hold the fort until she returns on Thursday. “I have a couple of obligations that I have to meet today and tomorrow but my husband and daughter are in South Carolina.”
She also defended Bill Clinton’s “dedicated, passionate support” of her campaign amid his increasing attacks on Obama, saying it was legitimate to expose the candidate’s political records to public scrutiny.
Recent outbursts by the ex-president have left some Democrats warning he must calm down, and questioning whether he is tarnishing his own White House legacy, as Obama complained his positions are being deliberately distorted.
“I can’t tell who I am running against sometimes,” Obama complained Monday.
Obama’s top strategist David Axelrod said the former president’s knack for capturing a headline left his wife free to expand her powerbase elsewhere. “They are going to position President Clinton here in his role as super-surrogate, they will take advantage of this extraordinary asset, that we will be watching carefully.”
In California, where the former first lady hopes to gain an edge among Hispanic voters while Obama targets Africa- Americans, Clinton leads a RealClearPolitics.com average of recent polls by 10 percent.
In another key state, New Jersey, she leads Obama 45 to 26 points, and in her home state of New York she has a two-to-one lead among likely primary voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll published on Tuesday.
Obama, vying to become America’s first black president meanwhile has high hopes for his home state of Illinois, southern powerbases states like Georgia with large populations of black voters.