Obama, Clinton campaigns spar over NAFTA

LORAIN, Ohio - Barack Obama struck at rival Hillary Clinton’s base of support among blue-collar workers on Sunday, accusing her of trying to back away from past support of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is deeply unpopular in this economically lagging industrial state.

Surrounded by manufacturing workers at a gypsum wall board factory near Cleveland, Obama laid responsibility for NAFTA squarely with her husband’s administration, which secured ratification of the treaty. And he quoted from past statements she made supportive of the agreement, including one from 2004.

“Ten years after NAFTA passed, Sen. Clinton said it was good for America,” Obama said. “Well, I don’t think NAFTA has been good for America — and I never have.”

Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer countered by citing a 2000 speech in which she described the trade agreement as “flawed” and a 2004 speech Obama made to the Illinois Farm Bureau in which he said the United States “benefited enormously” from exports under NAFTA.

Clinton had angrily denounced the Obama campaign a day earlier for circulating fliers that she said distorted her record on NAFTA. An Obama adviser said the campaign was determined to keep the controversy alive to focus attention on the Clinton administration’s trade record.

“Hold on a second,” Obama said later at a rally in Toledo. “The Clinton administration championed NAFTA, passed NAFTA, signed NAFTA.”

Primaries March 4 in Ohio and Texas are shaping up as a make-or-break test of the Clinton campaign’s viability and even her husband has said she must win both states. Polls show a statistical tie in Texas and a narrowing lead for Clinton in Ohio.

White blue-collar workers, a large constituency in Ohio, had consistently supported Clinton over Obama in primaries and caucuses elsewhere up until his 17-point victory in last week’s Wisconsin primary. He won over working-class voters there with a campaign that stressed Clinton administration trade agreements among its themes.

In recent weeks, Obama has secured endorsements from several major unions, including the Teamsters, the Service Employees International and the United Food & Commercial Workers.

Sensitive to discontent in the state over NAFTA, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a key ally of Clinton, asserted last week that the former first lady had privately opposed the trade deal within the White House.

In the current campaign, Clinton and Obama have expressed similar views on NAFTA, saying the trade agreement should be changed but not scrapped.

Clinton’s plan to “fix” NAFTA includes new enforceable protections for labor and environmental standards.

Obama, when asked whether he would repeal NAFTA, has said business relationships among the countries were now so entrenched that reversing the trade deal “would probably result in more jobs losses in the United States than job gains.” Instead, he said the treaty should be amended.

Campaigning in Rhode Island, Clinton mocked Barack Obama’s campaign style as one that portrays a divine-like picture of problem-solving to voters when the challenges America face are much more complex.

Delivering a speech to several thousand people at Rhode Island College, Clinton also contended Obama had given up on implementing a universal health insurance program that she said should go hand-in-hand with other Democrat-led achievements such as Social Security and Medicare as grand social programs.

Clinton discussed a litany of challenges facing the country, ranging from home foreclosure to responsibly bring troops home from the Iraq war.

“None of the problems we face will be easily solved,” she said before delivering a fanciful description of an Obama speech.

“Now I could stand up here and say, ‘Let’s just get everybody together. Let’s get unified. The sky will open. The lights will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.’

“Maybe I’ve just lived a little long, but I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear,” she said.

At his rally in Toledo, which filled an arena to its 10,000-person capacity, Obama offered a rejoinder, citing his campaign’s policy of refusing contributions from registered federal lobbyists and her campaign’s willingness to accept the donations.

“It doesn’t help if you take $1 million or $2 million or $3 million or $5 million from lobbyists for the special interests,” Obama said. “It definitely won’t go away then.”