The 'secular messiah' vs. the 'co-president'

Washington Times:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton further upped her criticism of Sen. Barack Obama's soaring rhetoric by accusing him yesterday of posing as a secular messiah who will bring about paradise on Earth.

The rhetoric got more biting from the other side too, with the Illinois senator accusing the former first lady of presenting herself as if she were "co-president" from 1993 to 2001 while being disingenuous about taking credit for only some of the Clinton administration's achievements.

At an arena rally at the Rhode Island College Recreation Center, Mrs. Clinton drew big laughs and thunderous applause with an impassioned criticism of Mr. Obama's "misleading" campaign mailings, and she borrowed heavily from religious imagery and language.

"Now I could stand up here and say: Let's get everybody together. Let's get unified. The skies will open. The lights will come down. And you know the celestial choirs will be singing. And everyone we know will do the right thing. And the world will be perfect," Mrs. Clinton said.

"Maybe I've just lived a little too long," she said, adding that those years of experience have left her with "no illusions" about how difficult the next president's job will be. "We are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear."

Mr. Obama pushed back, agreeing during a rally in Toledo, Ohio, that a president cannot wish away special interest power, but he said "it doesn't help" if you are taking millions of dollars from lobbyists as Mrs. Clinton has.

"They definitely won't go away then," he said.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Obama held a town-hall forum at a wallboard manufacturing plant in Lorrain, Ohio, and said his criticism of her position on the North American Free Trade Agreement is fair because she includes her time as first lady for eight years as part of her claim to "35 years of experience."

...

Obama's criticism of NAFTA is pandering to union bosses and distorting the reality of the results of NAFTA. The fact is that unemployment is lower now than it was before NAFTA and employee incomes are up. Those results do not suggest the problem he is complaining about.

Donald Lambro points out how the US has benefited from these trade agreements with hard numbers on the growing export market.

That said, they have pretty well nailed each others campaign strategies.