better day
Sen. Barack Obama
SEE RELATED:
Sen. Hillary Clinton
DUNCANSVILLE, Texas — Sen. Barack Obama announced yesterday he has collected campaign money from more than 1 million donors, shattering records as rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was in the race for the long haul.\
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“I’ve been funded by you,” Mr. Obama told a voter, who asked if he would keep his promises should he be elected in November, during a town hall forum in suburban Dallas.\
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“I don’t have any strings attached to me. The only people I owe are you,” he said, because he has not accepted lobbyist donations.\
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Mrs. Clinton, earlier yesterday, said she disagreed with criticism that she lacked a “knockout” in Tuesday’s debate.\
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“That’s a prize fight; that’s not a debate,” the New York senator said, adding that the debate in Cleveland succeeded in drawing “real contrasts” with Mr. Obama, of Illinois.\
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Mrs. Clinton — who has lost 11 consecutive contests to Mr. Obama but closely trails him in nominating delegates — said she is optimistic about wins in potentially pivotal primaries Tuesday in the delegate-rich states of Ohio and Texas.\
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“I’m doing everything I can to win,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters on her plane en route from Cleveland to Zanesville, Ohio, an impoverished Appalachian town, to campaign on her economic-recovery plan.
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Sen. John McCain
Stephen Dinan
In a sneak preview of the ground that both men would defend if they face each other in the presidential election, John McCain yesterday accused Sen. Barack Obama of misreading the war in Iraq and Mr. Obama accused the Arizona senator of getting it wrong in the first place.\
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The exchange, which came even as the two men are still trying to wrap up their own party nominations, underscored Mr. McCain’s belief that he must confront Iraq head-on by pointing to a continued terrorist threat there and signaled Mr. Obama’s approach of tying his opponent to President Bush and questioning the decision to go to war in the first place.\
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Mr. McCain fired first, blasting the Illinois senator for saying that after he withdraws U.S. forces, he would consider sending troops back if al Qaeda establishes a base there.\
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“I have some news. Al Qaeda is in Iraq. It’s called ‘al Qaeda in Iraq,’ ” Mr. McCain told a crowd in Tyler, Texas.\
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Mr. Obama, campaigning in Columbus, Ohio, soon returned fire of his own: “I’ve got some news for John McCain, that is there was no such thing as al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade.”\
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The war remains unpopular in opinion polls, and Mr. McCain is fond of saying he risked his political career in the Republican primary by embracing Mr. Bush’s troop surge.
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Lynn
Sweet
ABC’s Sunlen Miller
Mark Halperin
day of mishaps
— Christina Bellantoni, national political reporter, The Washington Times
