Mar 27, 2008 7:42 pm US/Central
Hillary Rails On Obama, McCain, Bush Over Economy
Clinton: At 3 a.m., Economic Phone At White House Would Ring, Ring And Ring
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
It is not easy to tell the difference between Sen. Barack Obama's prescription for the economy and Sen. Hillary Clinton's. Even his supporters say it may come down more to style than substance.
Clinton, though, was having it none of it Thursday as she hammered Obama, President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain over the woeful economy and their respective plans to fix it.
With a possible recession dominating the presidential race, Obama jumped head-first into the fray on Thursday when he addressed New Yorkers at Cooper Union.
"Under Republican and Democratic administrations, we failed to guard against manipulation instead of sound business practices," Obama told the crowd.
It was a swipe at both President Bush and Bill Clinton, whose wife delivered her big economic speech earlier this week.
But many of his proposals were similar to Hillary Clinton's. Like his rival, he proposed a second $30 billion economic stimulus program to jumpstart the economy. And he said Washington needs to reign in the financial industry.
"Too often we've excused ethic of greed, insider trading, corner cutting," the Illinois senator said.
In response, NYC Councilman James Sanders said, "There's little difference (between the candidates' plans) but will they stay as theory or can someone actually bring everyone together to make it happen?"
Obama's speech had few of the trappings of his famed rallies. Outside, his fans hawked T-shirts reading "Barack Will Save America." But the tone of his speech was sober, to match the subject matter.
The Clinton campaign immediately ridiculed Obama's plans as a copycat of his rival's. Clinton herself continued to question his qualifications.
"We need to know what it is we are voting for, what it is we will get because this is one of the most important elections that our country has had in a very long time," New York's junior senator said. "The stakes are huge, the challenges are serious."
Obama is trying to convince the Democrats that the race with Clinton is all but over. Her goal is to continue to plant a seed of doubt about him.
"It is time for a president who is ready on day one to be commander in chief of our economy," she said. "Sometimes the phone rings at 3 a.m. at the White House and it's an economic crisis and we need a president who is ready, willing and able to answer that call."
Hillary also took shots at Sen. John McCain.
"I read the speech that Sen. McCain gave the other day which set forth his plan which does virtually nothing to ease the credit crisis or the housing crisis," she said. "It seems like if the phone were ringing he would just let it ring and ring and ring."
And then she slammed Bush again.
"We've had enough of a president who didn't know enough about economics, and didn't do enough for the middle class. I don't think we can afford four more years of that kind of inaction."
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