Source:
Washington Post, Page OneBy Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 3, 2007; Page A01
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, Dec. 2 -- With a new poll showing her losing ground in the Iowa caucus race, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) mounted a new, more aggressive attack against Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Sunday, raising direct questions about his character, challenging his integrity and forecasting a sharp debate over those subjects in the days ahead.
Clinton has hammered Obama recently over his health-care proposal, arguing that he is misleading voters because it omits millions of people and would not lower costs. But Sunday, in a dramatic shift, she made it clear that her goal is to challenge Obama not just on policy but also on one of his strongest selling points: his reputation for honesty.
"There's a big difference between our courage and our convictions, what we believe and what we're willing to fight for," Clinton told reporters here. She said voters in Iowa will have a choice "between someone who talks the talk, and somebody who's walked the walk." Asked directly whether she intended to raise questions about Obama's character, she replied: "It's beginning to look a lot like that."
The Obama campaign quickly fought back, and the candidate himself called the new effort a sign of desperation. A new Des Moines Register poll released Sunday finds Clinton three points behind Obama, within the poll's margin of error, among likely Democratic caucusgoers....
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The new Clinton strategy, acknowledged by her senior advisers as an intentional pivot, carries significant risks and could produce a potential backlash if voters perceive her as growing too negative. The Register's poll also found that Clinton was seen by Iowa voters as the most negative of the Democratic contenders....
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