Clinton and Obama trade blows

WASHINGTON – Hillary Clinton warned Americans on Monday not to take a chance on Barack Obama’s lack of experience on military and foreign affairs, while he questioned her commitment to fixing trade policies that have devastated Ohio’s industrial base.

On the Republican side, likely GOP nominee Sen. John McCain said if he can’t convince Americans that the U.S. policy in Iraq is succeeding, “then I lose. I lose.” Speaking to reporters during a campaign visit to Ohio, the Arizona senator quickly sought to backtrack and said, “I’d like to retract ‘I’ll lose,’ ” though he acknowledged he is closely tied to the U.S. military “surge” and support for an ongoing American presence in Iraq.

The increasingly intense rhetoric between the Democratic contenders was a prelude to a debate tonight in Cleveland, the last before primaries March 4 in delegate-rich Ohio and Texas that could determine the fate of Clinton’s campaign for the White House. Clinton has said she plans to make her experience a focus of the remainder of the primary campaign.

Speaking at George Washington University, Clinton chided Obama for what she said was a lack of experience that could rival a Bush administration that had a strategy based on a series of “false choices and then is indifferent about the consequences – force versus diplomacy, unilateralism versus multilateralism, hard power versus soft.”

“We’ve seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security,” she said. “We can’t let that happen again. America has already taken that chance one time too many.”

Clinton cited her background of having been in the White House with her husband during times of crises as well as her service as a two-term New York senator on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Her remarks were the latest example of trying to leverage the unpopularity of President Bush among Democrats and independents onto Obama. She has previously accused Obama’s campaign of using Republican-like tactics to attack her on health care and trade.

In campaign rallies in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, Obama did not directly address Clinton’s speech. Instead, he left the task to surrogates who also sought to echo his anti-NAFTA message against Clinton.

Susan Rice, an assistant secretary of state in President Bill Clinton’s administration who is now an Obama foreign policy adviser, said even before the speech that Sen. Clinton’s foreign policy record showed poor judgment, foremost in her vote to authorize the war in Iraq.

Rice also cited Sen. Clinton’s support for a Senate resolution urging the Bush administration to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization – legislation that the Obama camp has argued would provide political cover for people in the administration who are urging a military attack on Iran.

Borrowing a theme repeated frequently by Obama, Rice said, “What is important on Day One is to get it right and have the right judgment.”