By AFP
Washington : Barack Obama Wednesday turned to hardball tactics after Hillary Clinton’s comeback wins staved off extinction for her Democratic White House bid, as President George W. Bush embraced Republican candidate John McCain.
Obama aides vowed to fight fire with fire, after Clinton’s withering scrutiny of his integrity and national security mettle helped her break his 12-contest win streak in three of Tuesday’s four nominating showdowns.
“The vetting of Hillary Clinton has yet to start. The hard questions haven’t been asked of Senator Clinton,” said Obama strategist David Axelrod.
The Obama campaign demanded in a conference call that Clinton immediately release her tax returns, which opponents accuse of her trying to cover up.
Axelrod also accused the former first lady’s camp of initiating a “search and destroy” mission against Obama, over a hard-hitting ad campaign questioning his capacity to handle a late-night foreign policy crisis as president.
On the Republican side, in the latest twist to an often complicated relationship, Bush welcomed McCain, whom he crushed in the 2000 primary race, to the White House, the day after the Arizona senator finally clinched the nomination.
“He’s going to win,” said Bush, and pledged to campaign for his once sworn foe.
However, the president will need careful handling as he is unpopular nationally, despite being a hero to conservatives skeptical of McCain. “If he wants my pretty face standing by his side at one of these rallies, I’ll be glad to show up,” Bush said.
Earlier, as weary Democratic strategists geared up for the reality that the most expensive nominating battle in history will likely stretch into June, and even into August’s convention, the Clinton camp fired the first shot.
In a memo sketching Clinton’s “path to the presidency” her camp warned, “The vetting of Obama has just begun.” If the race ended soon, with the Illinois senator as nominee, he would be a “lightning rod of controversy,” while Clinton had withstood 15 years of media and Republican scrutiny, the memo argued.
Only days ago, pundits had predicted the former first lady was heading into oblivion after Obama surged to 11 straight wins in the fight to be the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nominee.
But in a stunning change of mood, in a blitz of Wednesday media appearances, she was fielding questions about whether putting both Democratic rivals on a united party ticket was the only way out of the struggle.
Clinton did not rule out the possibility, telling CBS television: “That may be where this is headed. But of course we have to decide who is on the top of the ticket.”
Obama said such talk was premature, arguing that despite Clinton’s wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island to his sole triumph in Vermont, he was still the virtual front-runner. “We still have what is close to an insurmountable lead in terms of winning pledged delegates,” Obama said on CBS.
A total of 2,025 delegates is needed for the party’s nomination. According to an updated tally by independent website RealClearPolitics.com, Clinton had 1,464 to Obama’s 1,573.
So their tussle could go down to the wire at the party’s August convention in Denver, Colorado, when the nomination could be decided by so-called “superdelegates” — party luminaries who can vote for whom they like.
“By fighting the primary to a near-draw and earning a resounding victory in the caucus, the people of Texas have moved Barack Obama one step closer to claiming the Democratic nomination for president,” Adrian Saenz, director of Senator Obama’s campaign in Texas, said in a statement.
If Obama did win the party nomination, an ABC/Washington Post poll suggested that voters believe he would be better situated to beat McCain by a margin of 52 percent to 40 percent, compared to 50 to 44 percent for Clinton over McCain.
However, the survey, carried out prior to Clinton’s Tuesday victories, showed Obama losing out to McCain on experience (19 to 70 percent) and in knowledge of world affairs (24 to 64 percent).
At a news conference after his White House reception, McCain said the Iraq withdrawal plans of Clinton and Obama would trigger “chaos and genocide” and allow Al-Qaeda to proclaim victory over the United States.
But he said he also wanted a “respectful and vigorous debate” in the months of campaigning ahead, adding that “I am confident at the end of the day, we will prevail.”