Clinton is pressed for tax papers
Strategists for Barack Obama pressed an attack on Hillary Clinton over accountability and ethics yesterday, demanding that she release more documents on income taxes and foundation donors. The New York senator's campaign pushed back, accusing her rival of stepping up personal attacks.
"This is a tried and true technique of the Obama campaign that has repeatedly shifted negative when they find the momentum working against them," said senior Clinton strategist Mark Penn. He suggested the Obama campaign was trying to "deflect public opinion from their losses in Ohio and Texas" and faced with Clinton strength in Pennsylvania.
Obama communications director Robert Gibbs called on Clinton to release full post-White House tax returns; disclose all congressional earmarks, or pet projects she had inserted into spending bills; and to release all documents pertaining to activities to the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Library, including a list of donors.
"What is lurking in those documents?" Gibbs asked as the two campaigns had dueling phone conference calls with reporters. "There are gaps that need to be filled," said senior Obama strategist David Axelrod.
The Obama campaign's attack on Clinton came after a weekend in which the Illinois Democrat sought to ease public concerns about his ties to an indicted Chicago developer and to inflammatory statements by his former pastor.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
More than half the 14 delegates allocated to John Edwards on the basis of caucus night projections switched to Obama on Saturday. That raised Obama's total to 25, compared with 14 for Clinton and six for Edwards.
Iowa Democratic Party officials said that with all of the delegates picked, the senator from Illinois claimed 52 percent of the delegates elected at county conventions, compared with 32 percent for Clinton. Some of the delegates are sticking with Edwards, even though he has dropped from the race.
Iowa has a total of 57 delegates, including 12 superdelegates. Obama has been endorsed by four of the automatic delegates and Clinton three, with the remainder uncommitted.
California's Democratic Party finalized the delegate counts from its Feb. 5 primary. Clinton picked up two more pledged delegates, raising her state total to 204; Obama gained five, raising his figure to 166.
Counting the new figures from Iowa and California, an Associated Press delegate tally showed Obama with 1,617 delegates and Clinton with 1,498.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
There's good news in the poll for Republicans - voters seem to like John McCain more than they like the Republican Party in general, suggesting a tighter race than Democrats had foreseen.
But a more interesting nugget is buried deep in the data. It seems that the more voters see of Bill Clinton, the less they like him. The poll shows a significant shift in his approval rating from a year ago.
In March 2007, about 48 percent had a positive view of the former president and 35 percent had a negative view. Now his negatives slightly outpace his positives, 45 percent to 42 percent.
Over the same time, Hillary Clinton's positive number rose from 39 percent to 45 percent while her negative remained almost static, increasing from 43 to 44 percent.
As for Obama, in March 2007 his positive number was 37 percent and his negative 17 percent. Now his positive-negative numbers are 51 to 28 percent.
