Obama bloodied, Hillary surges
New York. Barack Obama’s star is fading (photo Elizabeth Rockett). Despite having raised more campaign money than Clinton from at least 258,000 individual donors, the Illinois Senator has had a rough two weeks since the CNN/YouTube debate on July 23 in South Carolina. That day he was asked whether he would “commit to meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, without preconditions, within one year [of his election].” He answered he would and provided Hillary Clinton with a golden opportunity to label his answer as “irresponsible and frankly naive.” As soon as the debate was over, her campaign started slamming the Illinois Senator for what it claimed was his “inexperience” on foreign policy. The strategy worked. Her lead has increased in the polls. According to the latest poll published last Tuesday, the former first lady is enjoying a gap of 22 percentage points over Barack Obama, 48 percent to 26 percent, while former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has 12 percent. Under attack from Hillary’s campaign, Barrack Obama kept putting forward ideas that have been described by his opponents as blunders. On August 1, the Illinois Senator who had come across as dovish, suddenly turned hawkish. In a foreign policy speech, he said he would call for military strikes against Al-Qaida in Pakistan if the government of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf was not willing to act. The comments prompted Pakistani authorities to warn against U.S. incursions into their country. On August 2, Obama ruled out the use of nuclear weapons against Al-Qaeda and gave his opponents another opportunity to criticize him. “Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons,” Clinton said last week on Capitol Hill when asked by AP about Obama’s comments. “Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace.” Fellow Sens. Joseph Biden and Christopher Dodd joined Hillary Clinton in attacking Obama, both calling his comments about U.S. strikes in Pakistan ill-advised. On Tuesday August 7 in a 90-minute debate in Chicago, Obama forcefully fired back at his critics,arguing that those attacking him had helped authorize the Iraq war, which he called “the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation.” Clinton tried to stay above the fray and said: “You can think big, but remember, you shouldn’t always say everything you think if you’re running for President, because it has consequences across the world,” she said. On Wednesday in Oakland (California), the Illinois Senator softened talk on striking Al-Qaida in Pakistan. He said it’s critical for Pakistan to be a constructive ally in fighting al-Qaida. He described president Musharraf’s job as “very difficult” and did not repeat his threat to attack terrorist networks inside Pakistan. Jean-Cosme Delaloye A French version of that story appeared on August 10 2007 in 24heures and Tribune de Genève. CommentsYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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