Obama's Train Tour Puts Spotlight on Clinton
HARRISBURG, PA. -- Barack Obama spent most of his train tour stops today criticizing Hillary Clinton and responding to her jabs at him. In Lancaster, Pa., he addressed the negative ads that the Clinton campaign is running against him in the state.
"Now she's running an ad saying well 'Obama's taking lobbyist money, and PAC money, and all this stuff, running another negative ad.' Let me tell you something. What we do is not perfect. But I can tell you this, in this presidential campaign, I have not taken a dime of lobbyist money. I have not taken a dime of PAC money."
Obama also defended his health care plan, which Clinton argues does not provide universal coverage. While he did describe her plan as "good," he said criticized her call for a mandated coverage. "When she says she's covering more people that's because she's got a mandate, it's not a mandate for the government to provide health insurance," Obama said.
"It's that you buy health insurance even if you cant afford it. Even if the prices aren't low enough. And my attitude is the reason that people don't have health insurance is not because they don't want it, it's cause they can't afford it."
Obama's harshest criticism of Clinton came at a stop earlier in the day, where he said cynical voters may side with her.
"If you are feeling cynical and your basic attitude is 'you know what, things can't really change' then you may decide that Senator Clinton's your choice, because that's the game that's played in Washington and we just want somebody who knows how to play the game," Obama said in Downingtown.
"But see, my attitude is that if you take that choice, we're just gonna tinker around the edges. We will end up obviously getting something better than George Bush, but we're not gonna actually deliver on big health care reform, we're not actually gonna deliver on major energy reform. I'm running not just to play the game better in Washington. I am running to put an end to the game-playing."