'Fear' row rocks Clinton-Obama tussle

[Ron Burgundy]

AFP - Barack Obama's camp accused Hillary Clinton of trying to scare voters ahead of Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary, as she rocked their White House race with a dark campaign ad featuring Osama bin Laden.

The Democratic foes squabbled over who was qualified for what Clinton calls "the toughest job in the world" during a frenzied sprint to Tuesday's nominating showdown, which polls suggested she would win.

As the campaigns cranked up huge turnout operations, attention was turning to the scale of any Clinton victory. Most observers think she needs a wide margin to breathe life into her uphill bid for the Democratic nomination.

Clinton's ad featured Pearl Harbor, Al-Qaeda mastermind bin Laden and Hurricane Katrina, mirroring a "3:00 am phone call" spot credited with helping her to win in Texas and Ohio last month.

She played off the script of her ad during a lunchtime rally in downtown Pittsburgh.

"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen," Clinton said, using former US president Harry Truman's famous catchphrase. "I am very comfortable in that kitchen making those decisions."

As the narrator of the Clinton ad speaks, images flash by of the fall of the Berlin Wall, bin Laden and the devastating hurricane that swamped New Orleans in 2005.

"You need to be ready for anything -- especially now, with two wars, oil prices skyrocketing and an economy in crisis," the male narrator intones. "Who do you think has what it takes?"

The 30-second broadcast does not mention Obama by name, but the Illinois senator's spokesman Bill Burton fired off a robust response and brought up Clinton's vote in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war, which his boss opposed.

"It's ironic that she would borrow the president's tactics in her own campaign and invoke bin Laden to score political points," Burton said.

"We already have a president who plays the politics of fear, and we don't need another," he said.

The New York senator also pressed home her claim that despite trailing Obama in nominating wins and elected delegates, she was still the most likely Democrat to beat Republican John McCain in November.

"He (Obama) can be elected; I will be elected," Clinton told the Philadelphia Inquirer, and accused Obama of going negative in the final hours of the battle for Pennsylvania, which heralds the 10-contest endgame of the contentious White House battle.

Late polls appeared to show that Clinton was again set for victory in a state packed with her working-class supporters, although by far less than the 20-point margin she once enjoyed in the polls.

She led Obama 52 percent to 42 percent in a Suffolk University survey. A Quinnipiac University poll had her up 51-44 percent, one point up from last week in the same survey.

But in an interview with Pittsburgh radio station KDKA, Obama said he would do well.

"I am not predicting a win. I am predicting it is going to be close and we are going to do a lot better than people expect," he said.

Clinton's huge task in overcoming her rival in the Democratic race was revealed by the latest figures showing Obama's staggering advantage in fundraising.

The Federal Election Commission filings showed the Illinois senator had 42 million dollars in cash in hand for the primary season at the start of April. Clinton had only nine million dollars in hand.

The Clinton campaign said Obama was outspending her three to one in Pennsylvania.

"If Senator Obama can't win a big swing state like Pennsylvania with that enormous spending advantage, just what will it take for him to win a large swing state?" Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said.

Neither Democrat is expected to reach the tally of 2,025 nominating delegates to claim the nomination outright.

So Clinton needs to convince nearly 800 superdelegates -- top party officials who can vote how they like at the party's August convention -- that it would be too risky to pick the inexperienced Obama.

Clinton said Monday she might include Republicans in her cabinet if she were elected president.

"I'm going to reach out to Republicans, all kinds of Republicans, because I think it's important that we try to have a bipartisan foreign policy," she said on CNN's Larry King Live.

"I have very strong convictions about what we should do, but I'm going to listen to and enlist Republicans, as well as Democrats, not only elected ones but distinguished Americans of both parties."

She added: "We need to try to have a bipartisan government. We've got to restore confidence and competence to the American government."

Clinton conceded that John McCain, the Republican party's presumptive nominee for November's presidential election, had "extraordinary credentials" but said: "The bottom line is that his policies are wrong for America."

Also Monday Obama could not hide his irritation Monday when asked by a reporter what he thought about former president Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas last week.

"Why can't I just eat my waffle?" the Illinois senator said as he ate breakfast in Scranton, Pennsylvania, according to MSNBC television pictures.

Pressed again for an answer, he replied: "Just let me eat my waffle."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080422/ts_afp/usvote [link]