DE PERE, Wis. — Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton carried their rivalry Monday across this ice-crusted state, where notoriously hard-to-predict Democratic voters are primed to give one of them a significant boost today.
The candidates fought over who may have stolen whose speech lines, over debates and over economic policies, but it remained unclear which of them will wind up with the victory that each so badly wants.
Polls suggest the race is close. Clinton made last-minute adjustments in her schedule Monday so she would spend all day campaigning here, instead of leaving early as originally planned.
Obama’s wife, Michelle, stumped from Milwaukee to the Minnesota border, while her husband headed for a late-evening rally in Beloit.
Clinton and Obama both presented themselves as populists in the tradition of former candidate John Edwards, whose support — and voters — both covet.
In the delegate race, Obama is currently at 1,281 while Clinton has 1,218. Wisconsin has 74 pledged Democratic delegates available. Hawaii’s primary has 20 delegates.
At St. Norbert College, the Clinton campaign unveiled a new weapon: a 13-page pamphlet outlining her plans to fix the economy.
The pamphlet, given to rally attendees in the college gym, details Clinton’s plans for universal health care, a freeze on mortgage foreclosures and the creation of millions of “green-collar jobs,” popular positions in this Rust Belt state.
Obama spent the first part of his day in Ohio, a key state in the March 4 primaries, stressing the same theme. His backers passed out copies of his 46-page economic plan, first released last week, and he told a Youngstown State University audience that “people are desperate out there. I meet them every day, see them here in town.”
Also vying here today are Republicans John McCain and Mike Huckabee. Though McCain is far ahead of the former Arkansas governor nationally, both campaigned here Monday, and McCain will rally his forces in suburban Milwaukee this morning.
McCain’s biggest challenge is avoiding embarrassment: Polls show Huckabee within striking distance here, although even if he were to win, McCain would retain a huge lead in delegates nationally.
Obama spent part of Monday defending himself against Clinton campaign charges that, in a Saturday night speech in Milwaukee, his words were almost identical to those of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick in 2006.
At a news conference, he said that while “I’m sure I should have” given Patrick credit, “I’ve written two books, wrote most of my speeches. Deval and I do trade ideas all the time. He’s occasionally used lines of mine, and I, at a Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Wisconsin, used words of his.”
Obama then tried to drag Clinton into this fray, saying he has noticed that she “on occasion had used words of mine as well. …When Sen. Clinton says it’s time to ‘turn the page’ in one of her stump speeches or that she’s ‘fired up’ and ‘ready to go,’ I don’t think that anybody suggests that somehow she’s not focused on the issues.”
