The latest Democratic soap opera in Pennsylvania erupted this week when Sen. Barack Obama seemed to praise Republican Sen. John McCain.
At a campaign stop in Reading, Pa., Obama said “either Democrat would be better than John McCain. … And all three of us would be better than George Bush.”
Speaking at a rally in Johnstown, Pa., with Congressman John Murtha, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton struck back.
“Senator Obama said today that John McCain would be better for the country than George Bush,” Clinton said. “Now, Senator McCain is a real American patriot who has served our country with distinction, but Senator McCain would follow the same failed policies that have been so wrong for our country the last seven years.”
“We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain. And I will be that nominee,” Clinton said.
The McCain campaign was pleased. Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman, told Fox News: “The remark underscores that John McCain has the strength to change America and move this nation forward. Barack Obama is a new face who represents old ideas.”
This is not the first time Hillary sought to gain ground on Obama for praising a Republican.
Back in January, Obama told a Nevada newspaper:
"I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times ... I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."
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