McCain, Obama Square Off Over Foreign Policy; Clinton Keeps Fighting
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, everyone. We are just hours away now from what will turn out to be two big primaries. Kentucky's polls open in just under 10 hours. In Oregon, people have been voting by mail for weeks, and they have until tomorrow night to drop off their ballots. And these primaries will be huge because, this late in the campaign, we still have Hillary Clinton fighting Barack Obama. In other words, it is not done yet. But, just as Senator Clinton and Obama lurch toward the finish line, John McCain has already concluded, Obama will be the nominee, the man he will have to beat to win in November, and is the target of his attack today.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Senator Obama has declared and repeatedly reaffirmed his intention to meet the president of Iran without any preconditions, likening it to meetings between former American presidents and the leaders of the Soviet Union. Such a statement portrays the depth of Senator Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment. These are very serious deficiencies for an American president to process.</s>BROWN: Now, Obama didn't let that go unanswered for very long. At his first campaign stop today, he hit right back.</s>SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What are George Bush and John McCain afraid of? Demanding that a country meets all your conditions before you meet with them, that's not a strategy. It's just naive, wishful thinking. Why shouldn't we have the same courage and the confidence to talk to our enemies? That's what strong countries do. That's what strong presidents do. That's what I will do when I'm president of the United States of America.</s>BROWN: Naturally, it didn't end there. McCain was up next. And here's what he told reporters just a couple of hours ago.</s>MCCAIN: That points out not only a strong difference of opinion that I have on that issue, but a different approach that I have to America's national security policy. Senator Obama has little or no experience on these issues.</s>BROWN: McCain went on to say, Obama has a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues in the Middle East. Obama is campaigning in Montana. So, if he chooses, he still has time today to return McCain's fire. Suzanne Malveaux is in Louisville, Kentucky, watching the Democrats. Dana Bash is watching the McCain campaign from Washington. And Candy Crowley is with Hillary Clinton in Lexington, Kentucky. And, Suzanne, I want to start with you. Obama and McCain have been going at it on Iran for days and on issues of national security in particular. Obama can't afford to let any of these attacks go unanswered, can he?</s>SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely not, Campbell. I mean, talking to aides, they realize that this is the one issue that's really going to be central in the general election, that is, of national security, which one has the experience and which one has the philosophical difference, really, to protect the American people, whose approach is better, the diplomatic approach or really kind of this very tough, tough kind of way that they're dealing with Ahmadinejad, as well as some others. What they recognize here is that McCain has had some time, the luxury of time, to try to define Barack Obama. He needs to define himself, and he needs to basically say that he is the one who's strong enough to be the commander in chief. They know that this is the one thing that McCain has going for him. It's his military record. He's a war hero, a veteran. This is something that they have got to hit back hard every single time. And we have already seen they have started that even before you get to the general election -- Campbell.</s>BROWN: All right, Suzanne, stay there. I will be back with you in just a moment. Now let's bring in Dana Bash, who covers the McCain campaign for CNN. And, Dana, on the flip side to this, it's going to be a central part of McCain's argument to the American people, isn't it, that Barack Obama just doesn't have the chops to keep them safe, right?</s>DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Remember, he picked this fight today, John McCain did. Some reason, a little bit of the reason is to get some other stories about his lobbyists in his campaign off the front pages, but much more importantly it is -- there's no question about it -- the general election campaign is up and running big time inside the McCain campaign. And when you talk to advisers, they say that they believe in this horrible climate for Republicans, their best shot at beating Barack Obama is to use the experience card and also to talk about the fact that he is not ready to be commander in chief. McCain has spent a lot of time actually talking about himself and his own qualities to be president, but he actually hasn't dug in and really pounced on Barack Obama, the way he has over the past couple of days. His campaign, they heard Obama say yesterday that there's a tiny -- that Iran is a tiny threat, compared to the Soviet Union, and they thought, this is a great opportunity for them. That's why you heard what you heard today.</s>BROWN: All right, Dana, thanks. And you stay there, too. While Senators Obama and McCain blast away at one another, Senator Hillary Clinton is barnstorming around Kentucky desperately trying to make a case that she still could win the nomination. But the simple math is only getting harder for her. After the primaries tomorrow, for the first time, Obama is expected to have a clear majority of the Democrats' regular convention delegates. But now Clinton is framing her argument differently. The new message is, she has a better chance at winning the electoral vote this fall. Listen to this.</s>SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D-NY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My opponent has won states totaling 217 electoral votes. Now, we have both won some states that are going to be hard for us to win in the fall, like Texas and Oklahoma, but I still have a cushion, if you look at all the states that I have won, and take out those that may not be in our column come the fall. My opponent has 217 electoral votes, including places like Alaska and Idaho and Utah and Kansas and Nebraska. And many of his votes and his delegates come from caucus states, which have a relatively low turnout.</s>BROWN: Senior political correspondent Candy Crowley is in Kentucky covering the Clinton campaign. And, Candy, Clinton is pushing ahead on yet another primary eve. The numbers not in her favor, but she is out telling Obama, hold up; you don't have this thing in the bag yet.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And that's because they are looking at these other numbers. And they're saying -- first of all, they're arguing to the -- not like a lot of other people, but they have an argument that says, look, we are ahead in the popular vote. It depends of course on how you add them up, whether you count Michigan, whether you count the people who voted in caucuses. Nonetheless, they're making that argument. They're making that electoral vote argument that you just heard. And they're making, again, the electability argument. So, the fact of the matter is that when they look at this, they don't look at the elected pledged delegates, as Obama does. They look at a whole different set of statistics. And they look at it as a superdelegate argument: Listen, people, before you make this decision, as superdelegates, you need to look at these things about who's going to actually win in the fall. So, she's just looking at a whole different book when it comes to the math of this.</s>BROWN: All right, Candy, if you believe the polls, Kentucky may be Senator Hillary Clinton's last hurrah. Our poll of polls -- and that's where we average several of the most recent surveys -- do show her with a 30-point lead over Obama, 58 percent to 28, with 14 percent of voters unsure. In Oregon, our poll of polls shows Obama ahead 50 percent to 40, with 10 percent unsure. And let's bring back all of our correspondents, Candy Crowley, Dana Bash, and Suzanne Malveaux. And, Candy, again to you, Clinton will be in Kentucky tomorrow night, as we mentioned, but Wednesday, she is on to, drumroll please, Florida, where she will presumably make her case to seat those delegates. Give us the latest on that battle.</s>CROWLEY: Well, the latest is that they're looking at May 31, perhaps one of the most important days between now and the 3rd, when the primary process ends, for Hillary Clinton. As you know, she has arguing to seat these delegates. They will seat the delegates, but obviously it depends on how they do it, how many delegates they give to Hillary Clinton, how many to Barack Obama. So, obviously, going to Florida spotlights her argument that these votes have to count. It's also, I should add, not far from Puerto Rico, if you are already in Florida. As you know, Puerto Rico has a primary coming up. And I would suspect we will see her there at the end of the week.</s>BROWN: All right. And, Dana, another lobbyist has resigned from John McCain's campaign staff, from a key position on his staff. How much of this is an issue from someone who is always out there touting his independence from special interests?</s>BASH: Well, it's interesting, Campbell. The McCain campaign clearly thinks it is an issue, because this latest resignation was a result of the McCain campaign purging its own staff to make sure that there were no lobbyists. This came late last week. His campaign put in place some new pretty strict regulations, saying that somebody who's a federal lobbyist can't be working for the campaign. That came after a couple of embarrassing resignations from people who were lobbying on the behalf of the military regime in Myanmar. But this wouldn't have been maybe that big of a deal had it already not been an issue, because a couple of top staffers into the McCain campaign, they're former lobbyists. So, all of this combined really did threaten McCain's image as a reformer. And that is really the crux of his argument to get those independent voters. So, you know, some people I talk to say, it would have been nice, since we knew that this was an issue, to do this months and months ago. But also say, you know what? It's may. It could have been a lot worse.</s>BROWN: All right, and, Suzanne, to you now. Obama won't be in either Oregon or Kentucky tomorrow. He is actually going to be in Iowa, scene of his big caucus win. And he says it's going to bring Iowa -- he's going to Iowa because it brings it all full circle, laying on the symbolism pretty thick there. What can we expect from tomorrow night's speech?</s>MALVEAUX: We can expect that you're going to hear him talk about Iowa being the place where really it all started and he's going to try to remind voters here essentially saying, look, this is a state where, you know, everything's divided in race. Well, this is a state, you know, 98 percent, 97 percent white. This is a state that had rural voters, a whole host of different demographics that he seized upon early on and really made hi meantime, front-runner to be. That's one of the things. But one of the other reasons that he is actually going to be there is to remind people here that this is a swing state. It's important. He was able to get a lot of support there and he is going to be making that case to the superdelegates. He wants them to weigh in on this before the Florida and Michigan decision comes down at the end of the month. He wants them to jump on board. That's why you are going to see him in Iowa tomorrow reminding not only voters, but the superdelegates, I'm the guy who can get the swing states and I'm the guy who needs your votes to essentially wrap this thing up -- Campbell.</s>BROWN: All right. Suzanne Malveaux, and Dana Bash, Candy Crowley, thanks to all our correspondents tonight. As the primary battle goes to the finish, it is a pure numbers game that doesn't look good for Hillary Clinton. Who better to explain how it works than John King? He is going to join us here in just a moment.