Attacks on Obama in 08 By Clinton get more Frequent

First we will get the political cartoon of the day. This cartoon is a great laugh during the current trend of the nominational races.

In the Republican race, John McCain, the presumptive nominee, was looking for convincing wins over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in primaries in Wisconsin and Washington state to show that the party is rallying behind his candidacy. The Arizona senator picked up former President George H. W. Bush's support on Monday, a critical blessing by a pillar of the Republican establishment.

Democrats in Wisconsin and Hawaii were voting Tuesday in a presidential campaign that has gotten increasingly negative with charges of broken promises, plagiarism and petty partisanship. Hillary Rodham Clinton was looking to rebound after eight straight losses to Barack Obama who was looking to increase his lead in the race for nominating delegates.

Recent polls show tight race in Wisconsin, even as Clinton's advisers have publicly downplayed their expectations, giving her a chance to halt Obama's streak of eight straight wins since they battled to a split decision in 22 contests on Feb. 5, Super Tuesday.

At stake in Tuesday's primary are 74 of Wisconsin 92 convention delegates, while Obama's native Hawaii, which also holds its caucuses on Tuesday, offers 20.

Obama recently took over the lead in the chase for nomination delegates 1,281-1,218. It takes 2,025 delegates to secure the presidential nomination at the party's convention this summer in Denver.

Clinton, who a few weeks ago was the front-runner, hopes a strong showing in Wisconsin will give her a boost going into the bigger state contests in Texas and Ohio on March 4 that could decide the fate of her bid to be the first female U.S. president. Obama is trying to become the country's first black president.

The following poll was conducted Feb. 14-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In Texas, a must-win state for the New York senator, a poll released Monday showed a tight race, with Clinton at 50 percent, and Obama at 48 percent. About a quarter of state Democrats said they could still change their minds, according to the CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll. McCain was leading preacher-turned-politician Mike Huckabee in the Republican race, 55 percent to 32 percent.

On Monday, Clinton's top advisers tried to raise doubts about Obama's credibility, pointing out that the Illinois senator has hedged on a pledge to limit himself to public financing in the general election and accusing him of plagiarism for using lines first spoken by his friend Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson, during a conference call with reporters, pointed to a speech Obama delivered at a Democratic Party dinner in Wisconsin Saturday that lifted lines from an address by Patrick.

"If your whole candidacy is about words, those words should be your own," Clinton herself told reporters during a late-evening campaign flight. "That's what I think."

The Associated Press reported in January that Obama had borrowed ideas and speech points from Patrick, often without attribution. But with Obama now leading in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton's campaign is using this example in an attempt to chip away at the premise of his candidacy.

The passage in question from Obama's speech addressed the power of oratory, and he used it to rebut Clinton's oft-repeated charge that she is the candidate of substance and he is the candidate of flash.

"Don't tell me words don't matter," Obama told the Wisconsin audience. "'I have a dream' — just words? 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' — just words? 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' — just words? Just speeches?"

Patrick, who made history by becoming Massachusetts' first elected black governor, used similar language during his 2006 race to push back on similar charges from his Republican opponent.

Obama blasted the Clinton campaign's accusations, but acknowledged he should have given the Massachusetts governor credit.