Undecided voters watch Obama-Clinton fracas

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

CHARLESTON, S.C. - It has now become fully a four-person race as the clock ticks down toward Saturday’s South Carolina Democratic primary.

Two married couples, the Obamas and the Clintons are battling it out over who should be the nominee.

Making the point that South Carolina has become a referendum on Bill Clinton was the e-mail from Michelle Obama that popped into inboxes exactly at the moment the former president started speaking Thursday in Walterboro, S.C. (population 5,545).

“In the past week or two, another candidate's spouse has been getting an awful lot of attention,” said Michelle Obama as she asked for a $50 donation to her husband’s campaign. 

“We knew getting into this race that Barack would be competing with Senator Clinton and President Clinton at the same time.… What we didn't expect, at least not from our fellow Democrats, are the win-at-all-costs tactics we've seen recently.”

'We don't play the fear card'
The Obama camp has adopted the tone of the victim who remains high-minded despite the injuries they feel they’ve suffered.

“We don’t play the fear card, or the race card or the anger card,” said Kevin Puleo, Obama’s regional field director as he tried to warm up the crowd waiting to hear Barack Obama speak Thursday night in North Charleston.

“I was convinced the American people were hungry for something new, they don’t want a politics that’s all about tearing people down,” Obama himself told the crowd later.

Obama told the crowd, “Some of my opponents say, ‘Oh, he talks pretty, he’s always talking about hope, he’s so naïve, he’s idealistic, he’s a hope-monger, it’s a fairy tale.”

Video Sen. Clinton hits at GOP critics Jan. 25: Hillary Rodham Clinton talks with TODAY's Matt Lauer about Republican candidates attacking her during their debate. Today show

One woman bellowed out from the crowd, “That was Bill!”

It was a reference to Bill Clinton’s calling Obama’s explanation of his stance on the Iraq war “a fairy tale.”

Eight hours later, Hillary Clinton in her interview on NBC's TODAY Show Friday morning, played two different hands simultaneously.

One hand: “Our campaign has to stay focused on the legitimate differences between us.”

The other: the Rezko card.

Who knew Rezko and for how long?
Clinton brushed off a photo that surfaced from the 1990s of her and her husband standing next to long-time Obama campaign fundraiser Tony Rezko, who is set to go on trial next month in Chicago on corruption charges.

Hillary Clinton attacked Obama’s relationship with Rezko to whom she referred as “a slum landlord” in the Democrats’ debate Monday night.

“I don’t know the man (Rezko); I wouldn’t know him if he walked in the door; I don’t have a 17-year relationship with him,” Clinton told Matt Lauer. “There’s a big difference between standing somewhere, taking a picture with someone you don’t know and haven’t seen since, and having a relationship that the newspapers in Chicago have been exploring.”

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Thus Clinton tried to keep Obama’s link with Rezko alive as an issue.

Earlier Friday morning in an interview with CBS, she seemed to apologize for Bill Clinton’s uncurbed enthusiasm in attacking Obama.

“He gets excited; he gets really passionate about making the case for me. He said several times yesterday that maybe he got a little bit carried away.”

'Just a hired hand'
To a voter in Walterboro Thursday who asked about Hillary Clinton’s position on states’ workers’ compensation funds, Clinton said he didn’t know the answer. “I’m very scrupulous; I won’t say what her position is” if he doesn’t know for sure. Then he added, “I’m just a hired hand here” — which drew a laugh from the crowd.

Later he told another questioner, “I’m out of politics now.” 

Here in South Carolina voters have been paying attention to the four battling spouses. Janet Sawyer, an émigré from New Hampshire to South Carolina, who came to hear Clinton speak in Walterboro, said, “I’ve met Hillary. I really like her; she’s so darn smart it’s scary, but so is Barack; he’s as brilliant as she is. He has my heart and she has my head. The trouble is Hillary comes with too bloody much baggage.”

As for Bill Clinton, “He’s really messing things up here. I got ticked off at him at one point. He was not making Hillary look good. He should not engage in arguments with people.”

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