Barack Obama, shown yesterday at a Los Angeles news conference, has said he would be a stronger challenger to John McCain.
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES - Fresh off a civil, policy-heavy debate with Hillary Clinton on Thursday night, Barack Obama argued yesterday that his early opposition to the Iraq war and his appeal among independent voters make him a far stronger challenger to John McCain, whom he increasingly believes will be the GOP nominee.
Obama said Clinton had still not "adequately explained" her 2002 vote authorizing the war.
"That's important, because it speaks to the judgment that's going to be applied in future conflicts and how either of us would operate as commander in chief," he told reporters at a Los Angeles hotel.
But Obama also suggested that if Clinton were the nominee, McCain would be able to focus the Iraq debate on the execution of the war, not the fundamental question of whether the United States should have ever waged it.
"The problem with the war in Iraq was a problem of conception," Obama said.
Obama also said that Clinton would be unable to attract new voters and that would severely inhibit Democrats if McCain, who has a proven ability to attract independent voters, were atop the Republican ticket.
"We can't start off just with the same playing field and expect to win," he said. "We've got to broaden the playing field. We've got to expand the electoral map."
Obama went on to cite the tremendous surge in Democratic voter participation in the primaries and caucuses to date. He won't take all the credit for that, he said, but he'll take a lot.
"I'm confident I will get her voters if I'm the nominee," Obama said. "It's not clear that she would get the voters I got if she were the nominee."
Obama also picked up two major endorsements yesterday, one from a leading antiwar group and the other from a big union.
Obama's longstanding opposition to the war helped him pick up the backing of MoveOn.org, a liberal network that counts 3.2 million members and decided to back him by a vote of 70 percent to 30 percent for Clinton.
The group said it has 1.7 million members in the 22 states scheduled to vote Tuesday and that it would immediately begin a campaign to get them behind Obama.
In Sacramento, one of California's largest unions, the Service Employees International Union decided to throw its support to Obama. The 650,000-member union had been backing rival John Edwards, who dropped out of the race this week.
The union's backing could help Obama cut into Clinton's lead in California polls of Democratic base voters, many of whom are union members.
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