Clinton on going negative: Obama, Edwards made me

“I have for months tried to stay positively on the issues, to talk about what I will do as president, to set forth my credentials and experience, the strengths that I think I bring to the position,” she said in a phone interview while traveling in South Carolina. “But I have been attacked pretty regularly by my two leading opponents, and it’s gone on for months. So, at some point, as we get toward the end of these campaigns, you have to stand up and rebut what people are saying and put out the contrasts and that is what I intend to do.”

“Voters are going to decide who has the qualifications and experience to be president and lead our country through these challenging times. I’m very proud of my record of accomplishment, going back 35 years, and certainly of the opportunity I had to represent our country in more than 82 countries, to be the voice and face of America in so many places, to stand up for women’s rights and human rights in China, to pursue religious tolerance by meeting regularly with leaders of Islamic countries that I was privileged to visit,” she said. “If he wants he wants to argue about our relative experience, that’s a discussion that I welcome.”

“Sen. Obama chose a different approach and leaves out at least 15 million people from that coverage. I think that’s a mistake and there are a number of ways of ensuring people are covered. Actually, Sen. Obama has a mandate in his policy proposal for children to mandate their parents to make sure children are covered. So, it’s not that he’s against mandates and doesn’t understand that there are a number of ways of implementing them. But that he got up to the edge of whether or not to support universal coverage and backed down because it is a more difficult goal to achieve. But I don’t see any choice. We have to go after universal coverage. In fact, you know, one of the things Sen. Obama takes credit for as a state senator is a health care task force that looked into the question of how do you provide universal health care in Illinois. And they came back, their report earlier this year, and it was clear, if you want universal health care you have to have a mandate. The Illinois task force looked into a bunch of proposals that didn’t include a mandate and found that none of them came even close to providing universal coverage. So, I think, the puzzling thing to me is Sen. Obama now criticizing a mandate, when he has one in his own plan, when he helped to set up a task force that says there has to be a mandate. And there are lots of ways to do it, through default enrollment, through going to schools, workplaces to enroll people. And I know members of Congress have a lot of ideas about this, so we’re going to work through the details to figure out the best combination of approaches. But if you don’t start from universal coverage, you will never get there.”

“I never take any of those titles serious. I get up every day and try to run as effective a campaign as I can, reaching out to as many voters as possible,” she said. “I’m just going to keep working as hard as I can to earn the votes of as many people as I possibly can. And I don’t think any of this really counts until folks start showing up at the caucuses or turning up at the primaries. That’s when it really matters.”

“I’m excited by the support that I do have throughout the state. There’s obviously a tremendous base of support for Sen. Obama, which is to be expected. But the polling that’s been done shows a relatively modest margin and we’re going to compete hard in Illinois. Obviously, I’m thrilled by the support I’m receiving from those who are contributing financially, but also, you know, people who petitioned for me, are organizing for me, are helping me to get my message out. There is an increasing level of commitment that I feel from what I am hearing and seeing, either when I’m in the state or getting reports about it.”