Hillary Clinton on Monday pitched a plan to stop a mortgage crisis degenerating into a full-blown recession as new vitriol spilled over in her Democratic White House struggle with Barack Obama.
Obama’s camp said Clinton would do anything to win, while her aides accused him of stooping to gutter politics, in sniping sure to deepen fears among some Democrats that the discord could boost Republican candidate John McCain.
Eyeing working-class voters in Pennsylvania, which hosts the next crucial nominating contest on April 22, Clinton called for emergency action to alleviate a mortgage crisis she said threatened the ”American dream”.
She called on President George Bush to appoint former Federal Reserve chiefs Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker, and ex-Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, to a bipartisan panel to report on the depth of the crisis within three weeks.
”It’s now time for equally aggressive action to help families avoid foreclosure and keep communities across this country from spiralling into recession,” she said in the speech in Philadelphia.
Clinton’s plan demands action to help homeowners restructure mortgages, removes legal curbs for lenders keen to relax loan terms and calls for a $30-billion stimulus package to help states fight foreclosures.
She accused Bush of presiding over a ”brain-dead energy policy”, eroding confidence in the dollar and pushing gasoline prices so high ”you feel like it costs more to commute to work than you make when you get there”.
But the Obama camp dismissed the speech as a warming over of already discussed campaign themes, and said Clinton was ”wallowing” in millions of dollars from economic special interest groups she was now vowing to challenge.
Clinton paused to mark the death of the 4 000th US soldier in Iraq, and renewed her promise to bring the war to a ”responsible” end if she is elected.
Obama said in a statement ”it is past time to end this war that should never have been waged by bringing our troops home”.
Earlier, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe took a fierce shot at Clinton and her husband, Bill Clinton, accusing them of repeatedly redefining the definition of victory in the Democratic race.
”It’s clear the Clintons will say or do anything to get elected; this is all about trying to somehow, some way create new rules every day.”
High-profile Obama backer Gordon Fischer, meanwhile, apologised for bringing up the Monica Lewinsky scandal, an attack itself prompted by comments from ex-president bill Clinton seen by critics as an assault on Obama’s patriotism.
”Bill Clinton should never be forgiven. Period. This is a stain on his legacy, much worse, much deeper, than the one on Monica’s blue dress,” Fischer, a member of Obama’s Iowa campaign team, said on his blog.
The remark referred to the infamous dress that was key evidence in the probe by independent counsel Ken Starr.
Later, Fischer deleted the remark, and said: ”I sincerely apologise for a tasteless and gratuitous comment I made here about president Clinton.”
But Clinton’s communications chief, Howard Wolfson, said Fischer’s comments were ”disgusting”. His deputy, Phil Singer, said Obama’s camp ”has gone off the high road and now firmly owns the low road”.
Monday’s speech marked Clinton’s re-emergence after an Easter break that gave her time to contemplate daunting obstacles facing her presidential bid.
With only 10 Democratic contests to go, she trails Obama in pledged delegates, the popular vote, and in fundraising.
Her only plausible path to the nomination appears to be in convincing nearly 800 superdelegates, party officials who can vote how they like at the Democratic convention in August, that Obama is an electoral liability.
But the latest superdelegate to commit to the Illinois senator, former Clinton administration heavyweight Bill Richardson, called for the party to unite around Obama.
Obama has no events planned until Wednesday, and was reportedly on vacation with his family in the US Virgin Islands. — AFP
