Lesson of Defeat: Obama Comes Out Punching

CHICAGO — Senator Barack Obama woke up on Wednesday talking of his delegate lead and of taking the fight to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. But after defeats in two of the most populous states, he also sounded like a chastened candidate in search of his lost moment.

Mr. Obama once again failed to administer an electoral coup de grâce, and so allowed a tenacious rival to elude his grasp. Now, after appearing nearly invincible just last week, he faces questions about his toughness and vulnerabilities — never mind seven weeks of tramping across Pennsylvania, the site of the next big primary showdown. His goal is to prove he can win states vital to a Democratic victory in November.

In Ohio and Texas, he drew vast and adoring crowds, yet he came up short on primary day, just as he did in New Hampshire in early January. Mrs. Clinton’s attack on his readiness to serve as commander in chief seemed to resonate with some Texas voters.

In Ohio, Mr. Obama failed to make much headway with voters who live paycheck to paycheck and feel the economic walls closing in, a troublesome sign as he heads to Pennsylvania.

But his challenge now is about more than demographics. He must reassure supporters, and party leaders who had started to rally to his side, that he can absorb the lessons of Tuesday’s defeats. And he faces a challenge of rebounding as quickly as he did from his loss in New Hampshire.

Flying from Texas back home to Chicago on Wednesday morning, Mr. Obama delivered the message that he intended to counterpunch forcefully.

His campaign aides on Wednesday urged Mrs. Clinton to release her tax returns from 2006, as well as her papers from her years as first lady, which Mr. Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, described as “secreted in the Clinton library.”

“She’s made the argument that she’s thoroughly vetted, in contrast to me,” Mr. Obama said to reporters aboard his campaign plane. “I think it’s important to examine that argument.”

Over the last year, though, Mr. Obama has struggled to deliver that examination. He picks up the cudgel, and then sets it down. The problem is that Mr. Obama has built a campaign persona as the man of hope, a young candidate with oratorical skills who promises to build bridges across the ideological divide.

If he indulges his inner Chicago pol, formed in a city where politics is conducted with crowbars, he risks taking the shine off. But his advisers say he has little choice.

Mr. Obama took aim on Wednesday at Mrs. Clinton’s claim that she is a seasoned hand in foreign policy. “What exactly is this foreign experience that she’s claiming?” he said. “I know she talks about visiting 80 countries. It is not clear. Was she negotiating treaties or agreements or was she handling crises during this period of time?

“My sense is the answer’s no.”

Mr. Obama, finally, has tactical worries of his own. He won in states like Missouri by running up large margins in cities and suburbs. But in Ohio, he appeared outorganized.

Gov. Ted Strickland, who endorsed Mrs. Clinton, advised her to encircle the cities. Mr. Strickland led her deep into his base in the hills of Appalachia in southern Ohio; Bill Clinton also passed through the region when he was president. Mrs. Clinton ran up big margins in those rural counties.

Mr. Obama retains significant advantages, including his lead among pledged delegates and a record-setting fund-raising operation. And he bridled at questions on Wednesday about his difficulties attracting working-class and middle-class support, noting his progress in that regard.

“I don’t buy into this demographic argument,” Mr. Obama said. “In Missouri, Wisconsin, Virginia and many of these states, we’ve won the white vote and the blue-collar voters. I think it is very important not to somehow focus on a handful of states because the Clintons say that those states are important and the other states are unimportant.”

His advisers pointed out that the Clinton campaign had built up 20-point leads in the polls in Ohio and Texas just two weeks ago and that Mrs. Clinton’s tough tactics and negative advertisements forced the Obama campaign upon the shoals.

But Mr. Obama is hardly a by-the-bootstraps insurgent. He had a decided financial advantage in both states, outspending the Clinton campaign more than two to one, and he could count on the support of powerful unions and the endorsement of a string of big-city mayors.

“I’ll tell you what I would do now,” said Mayor Michael B. Coleman of Columbus, Ohio, who had endorsed Mr. Obama. “I would start to draw contrasts with her. I don’t think Obama has focused on that, and there are opportunities to be explored there.”

Mr. Obama seems likely to take a tougher stance toward Mrs. Clinton, if only because he saw how well such tactics worked against him. When the Clinton campaign attacked on multiple fronts last week, he sometimes sounded defensive, occasionally talking at his audiences rather than with them.

“There’s no magic bullet that hurt him; it was a series of bullets,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant. “She reduced his charisma and forced voters back to reality.”

For now, Mr. Obama and his advisers are huddled in Chicago, plotting strategy.

Asked on the plane whether he and Mrs. Clinton might make a good ticket, he smiled. “It’s very premature,” he said, “to start talking about a joint ticket.”

McCain wins Republican nomination

John McCain has won the Republican party's nomination to run for US president with projected poll wins in Ohio, Vermont, Rhode Island and Texas.
His closest rival, Mike Huckabee, has dropped out of the race and
His closest rival, Mike Huckabee, has dropped out of the race and pledged to support Mr McCain's candidacy.

The Democratic contest remains on a knife-edge, with Hillary Clinton projected to win Ohio and Rhode Island.

Barack Obama is projected to win in Vermont, while in the Texas Democratic poll the result is too close to call.

Mrs Clinton's projected wins in Rhode Island and Ohio appear to have ended Mr Obama's month-long winning streak.

Mr McCain's victories in all four states take him over the threshold of 1,191 delegates needed to claim the candidacy at the party's national convention in September.


Stand up with me, my friends, stand up and fight for America - for her strength, her ideals, and her future
John McCain


The result represents a remarkable comeback after his campaign was all but written off following setbacks last summer.
Speaking to supporters in Dallas, Texas, he said the most important part of the campaign now lay ahead, in which he must "make a respectful, determined and convincing case to the American people" to pick him over the Democratic candidate in November.

Mr McCain went on to outline the challenges facing the nation, including the war in Iraq and the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taleban.

He also pledged a campaign that avoided "false promises", and appealed for voters to "stand up and fight for America, for her strength, her ideals and her future".


Mrs Clinton insists she can go all the way to the White House
Clinton's campaign ad

He will go to the White House on Wednesday for lunch with George W Bush, when he is expected to receive the president's endorsement.

Conceding the race at a rally in Irving, Texas, Mr Huckabee said: "It's now important that we turn our attention not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been but what now must be, and that is a united party."

Both Democratic candidates called Mr McCain to congratulate him on sealing the Republican nomination.

For the Democrats, a total of 370 delegates to the nominating party convention in August were at stake in Tuesday's four races.

The race was still too close to call in Texas, the day's biggest prize with 228 delegates up for grabs, including 67 in caucuses held after the primary vote.

Mr Obama had 1,386 delegates to Mrs Clinton's 1,276 going into Tuesday's contests, the AP calculated. A total of 2,025 is needed to secure the Democratic Party's nomination.

'Coming back'

Because delegates are divided proportionally, Mrs Clinton needs landslide victories on Tuesday and beyond to catch up with her rival.


She told cheering crowds in Columbus, Ohio, that she was determined to stay in the race and looked forward to continuing the debate with Mr Obama "in the weeks ahead".

"For everyone here in Ohio and across America who has ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you," she said.

Mrs Clinton also pointed to Ohio's status as a state which had picked the winning presidential nominee in every contest in recent history.

"You know what they say - as Ohio goes, so goes the nation. Well, this nation's coming back and so is this campaign."

Between the nationwide Super Tuesday contests on 5 February and the 4 March polls, Mr Obama won 11 contests in succession, giving him a lead over Mrs Clinton in the delegate count.

Addressing supporters in San Antonio, Texas, Mr Obama congratulated Mrs Clinton on running a "hard-fought race" but pointed out that he still held the advantage.

"No matter what happens tonight, we have nearly the same delegate lead as we did this morning, and we are on our way to winning this nomination," he said.

Mr Obama also used his speech to attack Mr McCain's policies on Iraq, warning that he would lead the country on the same course as Mr Bush had followed.

Mr Obama added that the result from Texas might not be known until Wednesday. He spent twice as much as Mrs Clinton on TV adverts in the state, including some in Spanish.

According to exit polls for the Associated Press news agency, Hispanics cast nearly a third of the election day votes in Texas - up from a quarter in 2004. In previous contests this year, they have favoured Mrs Clinton.

African-American voters - who have heavily supported Mr Obama - accounted for about 20% of the votes cast in Texas, the AP said, about the same as four years ago.

The economy was the most important issue for Democratic voters in all four states, especially Ohio, according to exit polls.

Those polls also suggested Mrs Clinton was doing well among white, blue-collar and older voters in Ohio, which may indicate she has halted Mr Obama's advance into those groups, her core base until recent contests.

Ahead of the day's voting, the New York senator and former first lady played down suggestions she was facing a make-or-break moment.

The BBC's Kevin Connolly, in Ohio's state capital, Columbus, says the struggle between the two senators remains fierce and close, and it is far from certain that America will get the clear outcome from these latest battles that it craves.

McCain Clinches Race as Foe Concedes; Democrats Battle Over 2 Crucial States

Senator John McCain, a one-time insurgent whose campaign was all but dead seven months ago, locked up the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday night after he defeated former Gov. Mike Huckabee in the Texas and Ohio Republican primary and Mr. Huckabee conceded the race to Mr. McCain.

Although Mr. McCain had been far ahead in the delegate count and been bestowed with the unofficial title of “likely Republican nominee” since his string of victories on Feb. 5, Tuesday’s results put him within reach of the 1,191 delegates he needs for the nomination. Mr. McCain also won the Vermont and Rhode Island primaries.

“I am very grateful and pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a great sense of responsibility that I will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States,” Mr. McCain said. He said this was “an accomplishment that once seemed to more than a few doubters unlikely.”

In a sign that his party is now officially rallying around him, Mr. McCain will travel to the White House on Wednesday morning for a formal endorsement by President Bush, a Republican official said Tuesday night.

Mr. Huckabee said he called Mr. McCain to concede and offer his support.

“It looks pretty apparent tonight that he will in fact achieve 1,191 delegates to become the nominee for our party,” Mr. Huckabee said. “I extended him not only my congratulations, but my commitment to him and to the party to do everything possible to unite our party, but more importantly to unite our country so we can be the best nation we can be.”

Mr. Huckabee added, “We’ll be working on everything we can to help Senator McCain.”

Mr. McCain praised Mr. Huckabee as “a great and fine and decent American.”

The Associated Press and television networks projected that Mr. McCain won enough delegates to clinch the nomination, but The New York Times has him still short of the mark.

Tuesday’s results cleared the way for Mr. McCain to move more aggressively forward with fund-raising, building a national campaign operation and positioning himself as a general election candidate — at a time when the Democrats were fighting among themselves .

Mr. McCain’s advisers said he had a steady schedule of fund-raising through March, in New York, Palm Beach, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Denver.

Mr. McCain also has a weeklong foreign trip planned in March as part of his Senate business, but he will use it to try to promote his foreign policy credentials to voters.

The advisers said the official kick-off of the McCain campaign would be the first week of April, when Mr. McCain is planning to go on what his campaign is a calling a national “bio tour” to reintroduce himself to the country in places that have been important parts of his life: Annapolis, for example, where he graduated from the United States Naval Academy, and Naval Air Station Meridian in Mississippi, where McCain Field is named after Mr. McCain’s grandfather.

Mr. McCain spent the day campaigning across Texas, from a Mexican bakery in San Antonio to a Western-themed saloon in Houston that was heavily decorated with taxidermy, saddles and Navajo rugs to a luxury hotel ballroom in Dallas.

At every step of the way, he made clear that he hoped to clinch the nomination, but often alluded to his superstition about making predictions even touching the wood on the table in front of him during a ride through Dallas aboard his campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express, when he mentioned the possibility of sewing up the Republican nomination.

Along the way he held town hall meetings — fielding questions on everything from energy policy and immigration to autism — and spoke in stark terms about the dangers in the world today, from the heightened tensions between Venezuela and Colombia to the rocket attacks into Israel that Hamas is launching from Gaza.

And he continued to chide the Democratic candidates, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, on the North America Free Trade Agreement, implying that they were harsher in their criticism of Nafta while they campaigned in Ohio, with its struggling industrial sector, than they were while campaigning in Texas, which has benefited from trade with Mexico.

“I didn’t go to Ohio and say anything that I’m not saying here in the state of Texas,” Mr. McCain said in San Antonio. “I support Nafta, I support free trade. I support it in Ohio, I support it in Texas, I support it all over the country.”

At one point during an appearance at a Houston saloon called Goode’s Armadillo Palace (where a sign near the giant armadillo sculpture outside admonished “Gentlemen Will Behave, Others Must”) he came to the defense of Mrs. Clinton and her husband Bill.

It happened a little while after Cindy McCain, in introductory remarks, said that she thought her husband was the best prepared candidate to field an emergency phone call at the White House at 3 a.m. — implicitly drawing a contrast with Mrs. Clinton, who ran an ad suggesting that she was t best prepared for such a call.

When the event was thrown open to questions on a wide range of topics, a man in the audience took the microphone to offer his own observations. “I just wanted to observe, when you mentioned the 3 o’clock phone call, that unlike other candidates in the race, if Cindy answers the phone she won’t be wondering where her husband is,” the man said, to widespread laughter and cheers.

But Mr. McCain quieted the crowd when he immediately moved to disassociate himself from the joke. “Please let me say, sir, that Americans want us to have a respectful campaign,” he said, to applause. “I respect Senator Clinton, I respect Senator Obama, and I don’t associate myself, even though it was meant in humor.”

When Mr. McCain landed in Dallas, he was asked aboard his bus what role his age might play in the general election; should he win the race, at 71, he would be the oldest candidate elected to a first term as president. He responded by pointing to his experience and judgment, and then by seeming to question Mr. Obama’s youth by highlighting his statement from a debate last year that he would be willing to meet with the leaders of Iran and Cuba without preconditions.

“I think my major theme of this campaign is that I have the judgment to lead,” Mr. McCain said. “And you gain that ability and capability with years of experience, knowledge, background and being engaged.”

He did not name Mr. Obama, but he went on to say: “I would never announce that I was going to sit down with the president of Iran, who would then walk out of the meeting and then perhaps articulate his country’s policy of the extermination of the state of Israel. I would never sit down without preconditions with Raul Castro, who was the executioner and the jailer for thousands of political prisoners in Cuba, and thereby giving him more legitimacy. Those kinds of things, frankly, are a product of inexperience.”

Clinton, Obama come charging into crucial day

BEAUMONT, Texas - Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, heading into a set of primaries today that could ignite a Clinton comeback or settle an Obama nomination, campaigned furiously across the Lone Star State yesterday in what could be the climactic battle of the Democratic primary season.
With a steely resolve and little sleep, Clinton began her campaign day in Toledo, Ohio, bringing predawn doughnuts and a promise of economic relief to shift workers at a Chrysler plant and finishing with a town hall meeting in Austin last night.
Obama focused on Texas, racing from San Antonio to Carrollton and then Houston. In recent days, Obama has largely traded his trademark giant rallies for more intimate, policy-focused gatherings, including ones yesterday on veterans' issues and college affordability. Last night, Obama hosted a rally in Houston with his wife, Michelle.
With new polls out yesterday that suggested she had expanded her narrow lead in Ohio and is deadlocked with Obama in Texas, Clinton dismissed questions about whether she would give up her quest for the nomination if she does not win both states, despite suggestions from some of her most prominent supporters that she should consider withdrawing if that happens.
"I'm just getting warmed up," Clinton told reporters yesterday, saying she was planning on pushing ahead to the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania.
Under heavy pressure from Democrats in both camps to score wins today, the Clinton campaign stepped up its attacks on Obama yesterday, shifting from criticism of what it calls his lack of substance to an assault on his character and putting Obama on the defensive hours ahead of the voting.
The New York senator pointed to a memo - written by an official in Canada's consulate in Chicago after a meeting there last month - indicating that Obama's chief economic adviser told Canadian government officials that Obama's criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement was directed at primary voters in Ohio and other states and did not represent his real position. Obama's campaign had previously denied such conversations took place.
"That's the kind of difference between talk and action that I've been pointing out in this campaign," Clinton told reporters while campaigning in Ohio.
Obama said his campaign never gave Canada back-channel assurances. The Obama adviser, Austan Goolsbee, disputed the account of his remarks. The Canadian embassy later issued a statement that the memo, obtained by the Associated Press, did not intend "to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA."
Obama also contended that until she began running for president, Clinton supported NAFTA, which was approved during her husband's administration.
The Clinton campaign also attacked Obama for his relationship with Chicago businessman Tony Rezko, a friend and fund-raiser whose trial on federal corruption charges began yesterday. Obama has been questioned about a deal in which he purchased his home in Chicago at the same time Rezko's wife bought a neighboring lot.
Clinton's campaign has called on Obama to reveal more information about his relationship with Rezko, including any campaign contributions Rezko helped collect for Obama. The Illinois senator is not accused of wrongdoing in the case, in which Rezko is charged with using campaign money to buy political influence and launch a multimillion-dollar scheme to shake down companies seeking government contracts.
Obama said yesterday that Rezko's problems are not his. "These charges are completely unrelated to me, and nobody disputes that," Obama told reporters. "There's no dispute that he raised money for us, and there's no dispute that we've tried to get rid of it."
While Obama and his supporters sought to dismiss the attacks as coming from a desperate campaign anxious to discredit him, Clinton continued to present herself as the most qualified candidate to run the country.
"President Bush is just going to leave this big mess," Clinton told a labor-heavy group in Toledo early in the day. "Who would you hire for this job?"
Clinton tried to tailor her messages to the electorates in Ohio and Texas, focusing on jobs in Ohio, which has lost more than 200,000 nonfarm jobs since 2000, and on national security in Texas, which has had 366 military deaths in the Iraq war, the second-most of any state. Clinton continued to press the case that she is prepared to be commander-in-chief - and Obama is not - with a new TV ad in Texas that highlighted his acknowledgment that he had not held an oversight hearing on the Afghanistan conflict as chairman of a Senate subcommittee because he has been running for president.
Obama, meanwhile, aired two-minute TV ads across Ohio and Texas last night in which, speaking directly to voters, he pledged to solve problems, end partisan divisions, and "carry your voices to the White House" to transform the country.
Clinton's senior staff said they were confident of her chances today, but contended that it is Obama - who has won the last 11 contests - who needs to do well to prove to the party that Democratic voters are not feeling "buyer's remorse."
Still, there were signs of anxiety in the Clinton campaign. Her recent rallies have been smaller than those in earlier contests, and have drawn far fewer people than Obama attracted in the same cities.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who has endorsed Clinton, yesterday became the latest Democrat to suggest she might need to drop out if she does not do well today. "Let's see how Tuesday plays out, and then let's start thinking about how we're going to get behind a candidate," Whitehouse told Providence radio station WPRO.
Clinton has natural constituencies in both Texas and Ohio, with heavy support among Latinos and record turnout expected in the Lone Star State and from blue-collar workers in Ohio. But Clinton's campaign maintained yesterday that it is Obama who starts out with an advantage in those states, where he has outspent Clinton approximately two-to-one.
Voters in Rhode Island and Vermont also go to the polls today, with a total of 370 delegates at stake in the four states and with Obama holding a 109-delegate lead, according to an Associated Press tally.
Obama said he had won too many states for his success to be easily dismissed.
"I would think at this point, the question is no longer, is it a big enough state, or is it a state with too many black people, or is it a state that's in the Midwest or is a caucus state," he told reporters. "We've won states and we've won delegates."
But Obama hastened to add that he was taking nothing for granted. "Senator Clinton is running a tenacious campaign," he said. "We know that this has been an extraordinary election and continues to be."

Iranian president arrives in Iraq

A military band plays as Iraq's president greets Ahmadinejad warmly. Security is tight, but U.S. troops are absent.

12:09 AM PST, March 2, 2008BAGHDAD — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad strode up a red carpet and into the Iraqi presidential compound today for the start of a historic visit to Iraq, where the United States accuses Iran of meddling in violence.Ahmadinejad is the first Iranian leader to visit Iraq since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, but there was no sign of lingering animosity during today's lavish arrival. Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, smiled broadly as he guided his guest from a dark sedan into his compound in Baghdad's Karada district.In a striking departure from other high-profile visitors to Iraq, Ahmadinejad did not use a helicopter to come into the center of the city from the airport. Instead, his convoy used the airport road, once notorious for bombs and other attacks and heavily patrolled by U.S. forces. He also did not head into the heavily protected Green Zone, going instead to Talabani's home utside the fortified area.A military band played rousing anthems as Ahmadinejad shook countless hands on his way into the building. Amid the stern-looking security men who surrounded the entourage, there was a notable omission: U.S. troops, who usually form the bulk of protection forces for high-profile guests in Iraq.This time, the U.S. military made clear it would not be involved in protecting the Iranian president, who denies White House claims that his country has provided lethal bombs as well as training and financing to Shiite militias in Iraq.Iraq's government has also accused Iran of fomenting violence here and has indicated that the topic will be up for discussion during Ahmadinejad's two-day visit."This should be presented at the table and discussed and negotiated," the Iraqi government spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, said recently when asked what would be on the agenda. "This is something that worries us in Iraq. We need to find a way to stop all this," he said, referring to alleged arms smuggling over the Iranian border.Talabani, who visited Tehran in June, will host Ahmadinejad. The Iraqi president's ties to Iran stretch back to the 1980s, when he and other Kurds as well as Iraqi Shiite Muslim political parties and militias sought refuge there and fought alongside Iranian forces against Saddam Hussein's army.Since Hussein's ouster five years ago, trade between the two countries has reached about $8 billion a year, and Iran recently announced a $1 billion loan to Iraq.