White House hopeful Barack Obama on Wednesday said Republican policies on national security had left Americans less safe and less respected as he fended off an onslaught on terrorism from John McCain.
McCain, the Republican standard-bearer for November’s election, was meanwhile getting backing from President George Bush for his demand to open the United States coasts to offshore oil drilling at a time of sky-high fuel prices.
Obama was convening a new group of advisers on security policy that includes prominent backers of his defeated primary rival, Hillary Clinton, including former secretaries of state Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher.
The Illinois senator was also to meet with nearly 40 retired generals and admirals for an overview of the US armed forces as he parried a second day’s offensive from the McCain camp about his plans to fight terrorism.
”John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s foreign policy, which has made us less safe, less respected and less able to lead the world,” Obama said in a statement ahead of the Washington meetings.
”It’s time to change course. It’s time to end the war in Iraq responsibly, refocus on Afghanistan and al-Qaeda, and renew our global leadership so that we can tackle the huge challenges of the 21st century,” he said.
McCain supporters again lashed out at a call by Obama for suspected extremists to be prosecuted, in light of a Supreme Court ruling last week allowing Guantánamo Bay detainees to challenge their detention in US courts.
”On almost every issue, he takes a much softer approach, a defensive approach, to combating terrorism,” former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said, citing Obama’s support for legal process and for talking to hostile regimes.
In November’s election, he told reporters, ”the American people are going to have a choice: Do we want to be on offence or on defence against terrorism?”
Giuliani, whose own bid for the Republican nomination this year fell flat, also lashed out at Democratic attacks on Bush’s ”war on terror”.
”The reality is that this country has been kept safe over the last seven years. We all thought there would be other attacks. It isn’t that they haven’t tried,” said the former mayor who helped to guide New York through the September 11 2001 attacks.
In any case, polls suggest that this year’s election will be fought not on the 2004 theme of who can best keep America safe, but who can best revive its economy and help hard-pressed voters at risk of losing their homes and jobs.
A new Zogby poll on Wednesday had Obama leading McCain by 47% to 42%, with a 22-point lead among all-important independent voters.
Other polls by Quinnipiac University had Obama besting McCain in three pivotal swing states for the first time — 52% to 40% in Pennsylvania, 48% to 42% in Ohio, and McCain 47% to 43% in Florida.
The Quinnipiac surveys also found most Democrats back Clinton to be Obama’s running mate, but clear majorities of independent voters in all three states were against seeing the former first lady run to be his vice-president.
Obama has enjoyed a bounce in the polls since seeing off Clinton’s dogged challenge.
In answer to the burden of pump prices, McCain on Tuesday reversed his own opposition to offshore drilling. That drew scorn from Obama, who said any oil from such exploration was years away and would come at an environmental cost.
But Bush, at a White House press event on Wednesday, was preparing to endorse the idea of lifting a 27-year federal moratorium on offshore drilling and so give new momentum to his fellow Republican’s campaign proposal.
”The president believes Congress shouldn’t waste any more time,” White House spokesperson Dana Perino said. — AFP
