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."