Clinton, Obama Seize on Killing
Reactions Illustrate Their Key Differences
By Anne E. Kornblut and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post
DES MOINES, Dec. 27 -- News of Benazir Bhutto's assassination came just hours before Sen. Barack Obama delivered what his campaign had billed as the "closing argument" in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday, forcing his campaign to scramble to incorporate the Pakistani opposition leader into his message of change.
For his chief rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Bhutto's death helped underscore the line she has been driving home for months -- about who is best suited to lead the nation at a time of international peril. In her comments Thursday, Clinton described Bhutto in terms Obama (D-Ill.) could not: as a fellow mother, a pioneering woman following in a man's footsteps, and a longtime peer on the world stage.
The differing reactions of Clinton and Obama to the assassination crystallized the debate between the two just a week before Iowans will decide the first contest in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.
While aides said Clinton was anxious not to appear to be politicizing Bhutto's death, they nonetheless saw it as a potential turning point in the race with Obama and former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.).
"I have known Benazir Bhutto for more than 12 years; she's someone whom I was honored to visit as first lady when she was prime minister," Clinton said at a campaign event in a firehouse in western Iowa. "Certainly on a personal level, for those of us who knew her, who were impressed by her commitment, her dedication, her willingness to pick up the mantle of her father, who was also assassinated, it is a terrible, terrible tragedy," she said.
(Continued here.)
By Anne E. Kornblut and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post
DES MOINES, Dec. 27 -- News of Benazir Bhutto's assassination came just hours before Sen. Barack Obama delivered what his campaign had billed as the "closing argument" in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday, forcing his campaign to scramble to incorporate the Pakistani opposition leader into his message of change.
For his chief rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Bhutto's death helped underscore the line she has been driving home for months -- about who is best suited to lead the nation at a time of international peril. In her comments Thursday, Clinton described Bhutto in terms Obama (D-Ill.) could not: as a fellow mother, a pioneering woman following in a man's footsteps, and a longtime peer on the world stage.
The differing reactions of Clinton and Obama to the assassination crystallized the debate between the two just a week before Iowans will decide the first contest in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.
While aides said Clinton was anxious not to appear to be politicizing Bhutto's death, they nonetheless saw it as a potential turning point in the race with Obama and former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.).
"I have known Benazir Bhutto for more than 12 years; she's someone whom I was honored to visit as first lady when she was prime minister," Clinton said at a campaign event in a firehouse in western Iowa. "Certainly on a personal level, for those of us who knew her, who were impressed by her commitment, her dedication, her willingness to pick up the mantle of her father, who was also assassinated, it is a terrible, terrible tragedy," she said.
(Continued here.)
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