DES MOINES, Iowa — The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan jolted the race for the White House on Thursday, sending candidates in both parties scrambling for political advantage while condemning the attack.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said the murder was proof of a need for a president who is ready to take command.
“I know from my lifetime of experience you have to be prepared for whatever might happen, and that’s particularly true today,” Clinton said in an interview while campaigning in Iowa.
She declined to be drawn into a discussion about the impact on a leading rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who has stressed a need for change in Washington.
McCain was not so reticent about comparing his experience with that of other GOP contenders.
“My theme has been throughout this campaign that I’m the one with the experience, the knowledge and the judgment ,” he said. “I’ve been to Pakistan, I know (President Pervez) Musharraf, I can pick up the phone and call him. I knew Benazir Bhutto.”
Asked later by reporters about his rivals, he said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee doesn’t have “the same experience and background on national-security issues that I do.”
Huckabee accused McCain of “playing political games” with the attack. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to respond in a political way on this,” the former governor told reporters after a speech in which he spoke at length about the assassination.
McCain said former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had done a great job with a “post-crisis situation” after the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks. McCain added, “I’m not saying he is without credentials. I’m saying I am the one with the most credentials and the most experience and the most judgment.”
Giuliani said the assassination was further evidence that the U.S. needs to increase its efforts against terrorism — and he began running a new TV ad focusing on 9/11.
Huckabee told an audience in West Des Moines that he visited Pakistan less than two years ago. “We don’t know who” killed Bhutto, “but we understand why — because she represented something that is a real threat” to radical Islamists, Huckabee said.
McCain made no mention of another leading rival, Mitt Romney. But the former Massachusetts governor was eager to join the debate.
“If the answer for leading the country is someone that has a lot of foreign-policy experience, we can just go down to the State Department and pick up any one of the tens of thousands of people who spent all their life in foreign policy,” Romney said in New Hampshire.
Instead, he said, what is needed is a chief executive with leadership and the ability to assemble “a great team of people to be able to guide and direct them to understand what decision has to be made.”
Alone among the White House contenders, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson called on President Bush to pressure Musharraf to step aside in favor of a coalition government.
“Until this happens, we should suspend military aid to the Pakistani government,” he said in a statement. “Free and fair elections must also be held as soon as possible.”
Richardson served as ambassador to the United Nations for a portion of the Clinton administration.
Obama said he had asked the Bush administration for intelligence briefings on a dicey situation.
He said the war in Iraq had diverted troops and other resources needed to track down al-Qaeda terrorists who move between Afghanistan and Pakistan. “I’ve been saying for some time that we’ve got a very big problem there,” he said.
Edwards declined to endorse Richardson’s idea on Musharraf, saying, “I don’t think now is the time to talk about things like that.”
He later talked with Musharraf and said he urged him to “continue on the path to democratization, to allow international investigators to come in to determine what happened.”
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters in Iowa that twice this past fall he urged Musharraf “to provide better security for Ms. Bhutto and other political leaders. The failure to protect Ms. Bhutto raises a lot of hard questions for the government and security services that must be answered.”
