'Now the fun part starts' in Iowa: Clinton and Obama launch sharp attacks

[DeepModem Mom]

Chicago Tribune: 'Now the fun part starts' in Iowa
Clinton and Obama launch sharp attacks
By Rick Pearson and Mike Dorning | Tribune staff reporters
December 4, 2007

DES MOINES - A Democratic presidential contest that had focused on high-minded qualities of leadership, experience and change has whiplashed into sharp attacks between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over courage, character and kindergarten writings amid ever-tightening polls and the ever-closer Iowa caucuses.

The intensity of the rhetoric flowing between the two rival camps underscores the stakes of Iowa's presidential deliberations, now less than a month away, for a Clinton campaign that had initially projected inevitability toward winning the nomination, only to find a strong challenge from Obama turning the leadoff contest into a tossup. "Well, now the fun part starts," Clinton said in kicking off the week with a new round of attacks on Obama, including using an event Monday to question whether he has had a history of putting politics ahead of personal conviction from his days in the Illinois Senate to his time in the U.S. Senate.

Clinton and Obama have traded barbs for more than a week, largely over the efficacy of each other's plans to provide expanded health care. But the New York senator's escalated criticism of Obama coincided with the weekend release of a Des Moines Register Iowa Poll showing her longtime lead in Iowa had been eclipsed by the Illinois senator. Two major recent polls have now put Obama in the lead, though two polls released today by The Associated Press and Iowa State University gave Clinton a slight edge. "I think that folks from some of the other campaigns are reading the polls and starting to get stressed and issuing a whole range of outlandish accusations," Obama said.

While Obama's campaign has readily responded to Clinton's shots as "disingenuous attack politics," it also has sought to profit from them. Supporters on Monday were asked to donate $25 to the Obama campaign through a Web site address that features the words "cost of negativity." Obama's campaign also asked supporters to use the Internet to alert them to other attacks.

A day after Clinton contrasted herself with Obama by saying there was "a big difference between our courage and our convictions" in seeking universal health care, she said Monday she was forced to respond to months of criticism from rival campaigns that have been "attacking my character."...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-dems_tuesdec04,0,1423617.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout

[monmouth]

1. These two are acting like children in the schoolyard which is great

for the grownups in the second tier. Biden, Richardson and Dodd, speak of issues and at least Biden and Richardson stay away from the snarking of others. HRC and Obama are attempting to outsmart each other and working their way to second tier positions. I'm loving it..