By Jeff Mason
TERRE HAUTE, Ind., (Reuters) – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton unveiled a second economic stimulus package on Thursday as a new poll showed her maintaining her lead over Barack Obama among Democrats.
With surveys showing the economy the top issue on voters’ minds, Clinton called for new steps to address a deepening housing crisis, including a $30 billion emergency fund to help states buy foreclosed properties and provide mortgage restructuring.
Clinton overtook Obama in a daily Gallup tracking poll earlier this week and the latest survey showed her leading the Illinois senator 49 percent to 42 percent in the contest to select the Democratic nominee to face Republican Sen. John McCain in November.
The poll was a snapshot of current popular feeling, but Clinton trails Obama in the state-by-state contest for delegates that began in January. The nominees are formally chosen by delegates at the parties’ conventions in the summer.
Clinton had hoped to try to chip away at Obama’s delegate lead with a rerun of Michigan’s contested Democratic presidential primary. But a Clinton-backed “do-over” proposal effectively died in the Michigan Legislature when lawmakers adjourned without considering the plan.
Obama opposed rerunning the Michigan primary. The Michigan and Florida Democratic primaries were invalidated because both states ignored party directives and held their balloting earlier than allowed.
Obama, who would be America’s first black president, is trying to rebound after a rocky patch. He delivered a major speech this week on race relations in an effort to explain his relationship with his longtime Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama condemned some of Wright’s statements, such as his assertion the Sept. 11 attacks were retribution for U.S. foreign policy and that the U.S. government intentionally infected blacks with the AIDS virus. But he refused to dissociate himself from the preacher, who he said had done great things for his Chicago community.
Much of the skirmishing on the campaign trail on Thursday surrounded the North American Free Trade Agreement. Campaigning in Indiana, Clinton, a New York senator, said she was never enthusiastic about NAFTA despite records that showed she helped her husband’s drive to gain its passage.
The accord is deeply unpopular among Democrats in “Rust Belt” states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, which holds the next nominating contest on April 22, because it led to the loss of manufacturing jobs.
Both Clinton and Obama have vowed to renegotiate the deal if elected to the White House.
‘PARSING WORDS’
While Clinton has talked of long being skeptical of NAFTA, daily schedules of her time as first lady showed on Wednesday that she spoke at an event in 1993 aimed at rallying support for the accord.
“I have spoken consistently against NAFTA and the way it’s been implemented. At the time … I spoke out about the concerns that I had about NAFTA,” Clinton said.
The Obama camp was skeptical. “Misrepresenting your position and carefully parsing your words when you don’t think you’ll get caught are the hallmarks of the kind of politics that Barack Obama is running to change,” his campaign said.
In Charleston, West Virginia, Obama said the $500 billion cost of the Iraq war was a drag on the U.S. economy and attempted to lay some of the blame for it on McCain.
He used a large portion of his speech to try to connect McCain to President George W. Bush, accusing McCain of wanting a “permanent occupation in Iraq.”
“No matter what the costs, no matter what the consequences, John McCain seems determined to carry out a third Bush term,” Obama said.
McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker said Obama’s statements showed he was wrong on both the economy and U.S. national security.
Obama was offering “the tired tax and spend ideas of the past” while promoting “an irresponsible policy of withdrawing our troops from Iraq without regard for the conditions on the ground,” she said.
