In an age that worships whiz kids from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, six-term Sen. Richard Lugar is widely described as a man ahead of his times, a thoughtful leader in the international arena who valued cooperation over partisanship.BLUE BELL, Pa. – From Pittsburgh in the west to Philadelphia in the southeast, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama scoured the Keystone State for support Monday on the eve of the costliest and most consequential Pennsylvania primary in a generation.
Clinton talked up her years in public life, telling a crowd of several hundred supporters in Pittsburgh that, “One of the best ways to know what someone will do is to look and see what they have done.”
Obama scarcely mentioned Clinton. Instead, he laid out his White House agenda, which would begin with a push to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq.
Today’s vote ends a six-week campaign lull, the longest break in balloting since the presidential candidates rang in the New Year with the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. The contest has lasted much longer than expected, giving Pennsylvania a prominence the state has not enjoyed since 1976, when former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter beat Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington.
The results today figure to be more equivocal, even though the candidates shattered spending records, with more than $12 million going into TV advertising alone.
Barring an Obama upset victory the biggest question is how close the two will finish and whether enough doubts are raised about Obama’s electability to sustain Clinton’s comeback hopes.
She trails Obama in fundraising, pledged delegates and the popular vote but has pressed the case that she can run stronger than her rival in the key battleground states – such as Pennsylvania – that Democrats must carry to win in the fall against Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate.
“It is the toughest job in the world, and you have to be ready for anything: two wars, skyrocketing oil prices, an economy in crisis,” Clinton said. “I know that is what it takes.”
Her message dovetailed with her latest TV commercial, which flashed an image of Osama bin Laden and invoked President Truman’s observation about the pressures of White House: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
Obama, in his campaign stop in Blue Bell, appropriated a major Clinton theme, telling voters he was ready to be president from Day One. His first step that day, Obama said, would be to give the Pentagon “a new mission: set a timetable for withdrawal out of Iraq.”
