With time running out, Clinton goes after Obama

MANCHESTER, N.H. – Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is offering tough new criticisms of Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) as she tries to stop the momentum resulting from his win in Iowa.

The shortened calendar has left Clinton with a short amount of time in which to stop Obama, and Clinton told supporters Sunday morning that “we don’t have a lot of time left.”

{mosads}The Clinton campaign has settled on a theme of “rhetoric vs. results; talk vs. action,” and, as the former first lady indicated at Saturday night’s debate, she plans to try and undercut Obama’s lofty speeches as empty words.

“There’s a big difference between talking and acting,” Clinton said Sunday morning.

Shortly after Clinton’s first event here, the senator’s campaign held a conference call with New Hampshire campaign co-chair Kathy Sullivan, who continued to hammer Obama on what Clinton is saying is his propensity for changing positions.

“Sen. Obama has just failed to explain why he has changed his position on critical issues,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan was asked about the tone of attacks, to which she said: “When did looking at somebody’s record become an attack and become negative?”

But Sullivan went on to say that “talk is cheap,” and on the issues of reauthorization of the Patriot Act and funding the Iraq War, Obama said one thing and did another.

At the Sunday morning rally, the New York senator said that she has “about three days of voice left,” and she is using it to push her new theme while her campaign hits Obama on other fronts.

Sunday night, the Clinton campaign held a conference call with reporters to question the legality of robocalls being made in the state on Obama’s behalf.

The Clinton campaign said the call, which defends Obama’s pro-abortion rights record against Clinton’s “smears,” might violate New Hampshire state laws because it contacted people on the Do-Not-Call list and does not identify its sponsor until 38 seconds in. The law requires the sponsor to be identified within 30 seconds.

Obama’s campaign, clearly in the driver’s seat here and enjoying a bump in polls after his win in Iowa, said Clinton’s tactics reek of desperation.

“Every hour since Hillary Clinton lost in Iowa, her attacks have become more and more desperate,” said Ned Helms, Obama’s New Hampshire campaign co-chairman. 

Helms said the call was in “direct response to one of many 11th-hour false attacks Clinton has made at the end of the New Hampshire campaign.”

Helms said the calls are complicit with the law, and the vendor hired to conduct the calls assured them “that he scrubbed the list for people on the Do Not Call registry.” He added that if the calls did go to someone on the list, they will make the vendor make sure it does not happen again.

Desperate or battle-ready, the Clinton campaign is acknowledging how important the next 48 hours will be.

An email to Washington, D.C. area supporters Sunday night, urged volunteers to come to Clinton’s Northern Virginia campaign to phone bank voters in New Hampshire.

“These are a critical few days. And Hillary needs your help,” the email reads.