Senator Obama Fights Back in the Homestretch

Senator Barack Obama worked to fend off an intensified attack on his foreign policy credentials from Senator Hillary Clinton on Sunday as their paths crossed two days ahead of a showdown in Ohio and Texas. "What precise foreign-policy experience is she claiming that makes her qualified to answer that telephone call at 3 a.m. in the morning?" Obama asked of the former first lady at a town-hall meeting. It was a reference to dueling television ads over who would exercise superior judgment in responding to a national emergency in the middle of the night. Obama criticized Clinton expressly for failing to read the classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons capabilities, a report available at the time of her October 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq war. "She didn't give diplomacy a chance. And to this day, she won't even admit that her vote was a mistake — or even that it was a vote for war," Obama said. "When it came time to make the most important foreign policy decision of our generation the decision to invade Iraq Senator Clinton got it wrong," Obama said. In addition to foreign policy, Senator Obama talked about economic issues affecting economically depressed Ohio as well as the rest of the country.

The Illinois senator also sought to ease lingering Internet-fed concerns about his religion, in particular whether he was a closet Muslim. "I am a devout Christian. I have been a member of the same church for 20 years. I pray to Jesus every night," he declared at an earlier appearance in the rural southern Ohio town of Nelsonville. He said he wanted to halt "confusion that has been deliberately perpetrated."

Meanwhile Senator Obama received another powerful endorsement over the weekend. He was endorsed by Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. Rockefeller, who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, endorsed Obama on Friday and campaigned with him on Saturday. Rockefeller called Obama "brilliant" and "well grounded" and prepared to take the reins as commander in chief.

Senator Obama was spending the night in his hometown, Chicago before heading to Texas on Monday for a final day of campaigning before awaiting returns on Tuesday in San Antonio. Recent polls show Clinton retains a lead in Ohio, although it has been narrowing. In Texas, her once formidable lead has all but vanished and the race is now seen as a dead heat. Most Democratic strategists see Texas and Ohio as must-win states if Clinton is to continue her candidacy, a view also expressed by her husband, former President Bill Clinton. But in recent days, Clinton campaign officials have suggested that if Obama doesn't win all four contests on Tuesday, which also include races in Rhode Island and Vermont, she would continue the campaign to the next major primary, Pennsylvania on April 22. This is something that the Democratic National Committee is hoping against. They want to consolidate the party so that they can turn their full attention to winning against the Republicans in November.