WASHINGTON — After days on the campaign defensive, Democrat Barack Obama accused rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday of leveling criticism straight from the Republican playbook and said that even so, he will win the White House over John McCain and an “out of touch” GOP.
“I may have made a mistake last week in the words that I chose, but the other party has made a much more damaging mistake in the failed policies they’ve chosen and the bankrupt philosophy that they’ve embraced for the last three decades,” Obama said.
“This philosophy isn’t just out of touch, it’s put our economy out of whack,” he said.
Obama spoke at The Associated Press’ annual meeting, a few hours after McCain made an appearance of his own. The Arizona senator announced support for legislation to protect the confidentiality of news sources, although he also challenged the news media to acknowledge its errors “beyond the small print on a corrections page.”
He also displayed his penchant for occasionally differing with the Bush administration, saying he believes the country has already entered a recession.
In his speech and in a question-and-answer session, McCain declined repeatedly to label Obama an elitist. But he did accuse him of making elitist comments when the Illinois senator said last week that some small-town voters, “bitter” over lost jobs and a sour economy, “cling to guns and religion” and resent those who are different.
“I think those comments are elitist,” he said. “I think anybody who disparages anyone who is hardworking, the dedicated people who cherish the right to hunt and observe their values and the culture … and say that’s because they are unhappy with their economic conditions, I think that’s a fundamental contradiction to what I think America is.”
Obama’s comments at the AP’s annual luncheon appeared to reflect a double-edged political imperative.
While still locked in a tight race for the party’s nomination, he wants to do what he can to blunt McCain’s recent rise in hypothetical general election matchups.
At the same time, he does not want to give ground to Clinton, whose aides have welcomed the recent controversy as a possible way to raise doubts about his electability in the fall.
Obama walked to the podium with a speech that included strongly worded criticism of McCain, who is assured of claiming the Republican presidential nomination in September at the party convention in St. Paul, Minn.
Obama’s focus turned to Clinton when he began fielding questions, though, reflecting what aides say is a rising anger after days of criticism of his comments. Clinton, he said, has “been deploying most of the arguments that the Republican Party will be using against me in November.”
