Des Moines Register s10

Des Moines Register 11-10-07

Distinctive styles used to criticize Clinton

Barack Obama frames his differences with the New York senator as a conflict of ideology; John Edwards has been more aggressive and direct in his attacks.

By THOMAS BEAUMONT REGISTER STAFF WRITER

Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards and Barack Obama have zeroed in on national front-runner Hillary Clinton in recent weeks, albeit in distinct ways that reflect their own backgrounds and campaign themes.

Their competing styles, as the two vie to emerge in Iowa as the stronger Clinton alternative, will be in full view in Des Moines today at the Iowa Democratic Party's Jefferson-Jackson Day banquet, where six presidential candidates are scheduled to appear.

Clinton, Edwards and Obama, as well as Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, will also try to impress the roughly 9,000 Democratic activists and hundreds of journalists attending the marquee event marking kickoff of the 2008 caucus campaign's final stretch.

The event comes as Edwards and Obama have begun trying harder to trip up Clinton, a New York senator, who has inched ahead in Iowa. Their tone has injected the 10-month-old race with a sense of urgency as the Jan. 3 caucuses approach.

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, has been more aggressive and direct than Obama in attacking Clinton. Edwards' way recalls his successful career as a courtroom lawyer and reflects his second presidential bid's populist edge.

Obama, an Illinois senator, discusses his differences with Clinton more as a conflict of ideology than of individuals. The tack fits with Obama's experience as a constitutional law instructor and his claim to be above divisive tactics.

"Obama doesn't seem ready to pick up the banner and throw punches the way Edwards has," said Rachel Paine Caufield, an associate Drake University political science professor. "Edwards is really coming out fighting."

Edwards and Obama each have attacked Clinton for supporting a measure in the Senate in September that allowed the Bush administration to impose economic sanctions against Iran. They argued the vote would help Bush, should he decide to order military action in Iran. Both Edwards and Obama also have criticized Clinton for stopping short of calling her vote for the 2002 resolution allowing the war in Iraq a mistake.

But Edwards has been more dogged in recent weeks in pointing to what he sees as differences in his commitment to ending the war and Clinton's.

"With less than 60 days to the caucus, Senator Clinton has still not given specific answers to specific questions. How many troops will she withdraw, and when will she withdraw them?" Edwards said during the Iowa City speech Monday.

Edwards has said he would immediately withdraw at least 40,000 troops, launch an intense diplomatic effort to end sectarian violence and have all combat troops out of Iraq in less than a year.

Clinton has said she will begin planning to end the war immediately upon taking office, if she is elected. But she has not proposed a specific timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Clinton has noted while campaigning in Iowa the sharpened criticism, attributing it to her lead in national polls and recent edge in Iowa. She has responded by pledging to remain positive, while dispatching to Iowa former President Bill Clinton, who has defended the new attacks as unfair.

"Iowans will have to decide for themselves if this reflects a new kind of politics, or the same old politics that both men have decried," Clinton campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee said.

The trial attorney vs. the professor

Iowa State University professor Dianne Bystrom said Edwards has been more confrontational than Obama, presenting the contrasts as evidence to make a larger point.

"Edwards really is a trial attorney. You can really see that in his campaign style," said Bystrom, an expert in debate strategy and campaign advertising.

Edwards said the individual differences he describes are aimed at creating doubt about Clinton's trustworthiness.

"Because of the damage to the trust relationship between America and its president ... I do think it's crucial that we have a president whose honesty and sincerity make the president trustworthy," Edwards said in a Des Moines Register interview. Obama signaled last month in interviews with the New York Times his plan to take on Clinton more aggressively than he had, although he has been less pointed than Edwards about her in front of Iowa audiences.

"If I have a serious difference with Senator Clinton, I've made that difference absolutely clear and I will continue to do so," he told reporters while campaigning in the Des Moines area Friday. "Understand, we have always said we're going to try to run a different kind of campaign."

Obama is less consistent than Edwards about mentioning Clinton by name when he campaigns, although he has taken pains to reach out to media organizations to level specific criticisms against her.

Campaigning in eastern Iowa this week, he noted his difference with Clinton by name on the Iran measure. But he was less direct in explaining ways the Democratic Party has compromised, a common complaint among Clinton critics from the party's liberal wing.

"We won't say what we're going to do to strengthen Social Security ... or we don't want to vote against Bush on a war resolution in Iraq because we don't want to look soft on national security or terrorism," Obama told an audience in Muscatine Wednesday.

Campaigning in Iowa last month, Obama specifically accused Clinton of dodging the issue of Social Security. Clinton has said she will not offer a plan to fix Social Security during the campaign. Obama has proposed raising the cap on taxable earnings from its $97,000 level.

Obama's challenge is to simultaneously go after Clinton while drawing caucusgoers to his campaign's theme of "Hope," Bystrom said.

"Obama has a much softer style and appears hesitant to go as negative," said Bystrom, director of Iowa State's Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. "He's professorial, and comes across as thoughtful."

But last week, Obama's campaign set up a series of press interviews to allow the candidate to directly critique Clinton's new energy proposal.

"If she's willing to shift this quickly on the issue, we don't know whether she will shift back when it gets hard," he told The Des Moines Register. He was referring to Clinton's new support for ethanol, having opposed measures to support the corn-based fuel additive in the past.

Clinton has said she opposed ethanol measures out of concern they would raise fuel costs in New York, but supports them now that her state is planning ethanol production plants. Obama later rejected in a Register interview that he was trying to send a message of toughness through the media, while softening his approach to Iowans.

"You're not hearing me say one thing one place and something else elsewhere," he said.

Register staff writers Jason Clayworth and Tony Leys contributed to this article.

Reporter Thomas Beaumont can be reached at (515) 286-2532 or [email protected]