Two days before the key Democratic contest, each portrays the other as disingenuous.

READING, PA. -- The Democratic candidates for president spent Sunday making 11th-hour appeals to Pennsylvania voters in anticipation of Tuesday's primary, and renewing their attacks against each other.

Making what he called his "closing argument," Sen. Barack Obama described rival Hillary Rodham Clinton as disingenuous, saying she revised her positions to suit the tastes of voters.

New York Sen. Clinton, meanwhile, suggested that Obama, and not she, had been clouding the last days of campaigning with negativity, then launched a series of attacks against the Illinois senator.

A strong showing in Pennsylvania's primary by Obama -- victory or a narrow defeat -- could put added pressure on Clinton to drop out of the race.

Polls show Clinton is leading in Pennsylvania by about 5 percentage points.

Obama called his Democratic rival a "tenacious" candidate Sunday, but said she was a product of a flawed political system that she had no ability to change.

"Her basic view about this election is that the 'say anything, do anything' special-interest-driven politics in Washington is how it's got to be," Obama said. "That's how the game is played. And so you should elect her to be the nominee because she has been in Washington longer and she knows how to play the game better. . . . That's the argument."

Obama spoke in a high school gymnasium here before an enthusiastic crowd of about 2,600 people. He took questions after his speech, including one about former President Carter's recent meeting with Hamas leaders. Obama called the meeting a mistake.

Obama faulted Clinton for taking what he described as conflicting positions on the NAFTA free trade agreement. She backed it when her husband was president, Obama said, but distanced herself while campaigning in states where the agreement is unpopular.

In a similar vein, Obama said that Clinton initially supported the Iraq war, but changed her stance when it began to go sour.

He said, "what you can't do is you can't spend a whole bunch of time campaigning on behalf of your husband's NAFTA proposal, and then when you're running for president go around Pennsylvania saying you're opposed to NAFTA. You can't do that!"

He added: "You can't say that you're for the war when it's politically popular to be for the war, and then when it becomes unpopular suddenly you say, 'I didn't really vote for the war; I voted for diplomacy.'

"The point is if we're going to bring about real change, we have to be honest with the American people about how that change comes about."

Asked about Carter's meeting with Hamas leaders during a recent trip to the Middle East, Obama said the former president was wrong to do it.

He said, "Hamas is not a state and it has not denounced terrorism. It has not recognized Israel's right to exit. It has not recognized previous agreements made between the Israelis and Palestinians.

"It's very hard for us to broker a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians if a certain portion of your actors . . . don't even recognize the people on the other side of the table as being able to stay there."

Clinton, in a whirlwind charge across Pennsylvania on Sunday, spoke to a crowd of about 1,000 people packed into the Liberty High School gym in Bethlehem.

"This week we had a debate, and it showed you the choice you have," she said. "No wonder that my opponent has been so negative in these last days, because I think you saw a big difference between us."

She said that she offered leadership and experience, and repeated her charges that Obama "says one thing, but his campaign does another."

The New York senator then made a couple of quick jabs at President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, saying "we just haven't had leadership in these past seven years," before quickly returning to criticism of her Democratic rival.

"It's important to me that this campaign not just be about speeches, the cameras and the lights," she said, "but about what we can be together."

She then talked of her plans for tax breaks, support for small business and renewable energy investment.

But she again struck out against Obama, denigrating a recent campaign ad in which he says he doesn't take money from oil companies.

"When I first saw that, I thought, 'No one takes money from oil companies' -- it's been illegal for 100 years," she said.

She added that both candidates, however, take money from people who work for oil companies. When Cheney presented his "pro-oil company bill," Clinton said, Obama voted for it; she didn't.

"I was raised by family to say what I mean, and mean what I say," Clinton said. She charged Obama with funding misleading mailers and television ads, specifically regarding healthcare.

"We need to try to achieve universal healthcare, not create political opposition to universal healthcare. That's what the Republicans do -- not what Democrats do."

At an afternoon rally at Greater Johnstown Senior High School in Johnstown, Clinton addressed about 600 people crammed into a small gym.

She again brought up her recent debate with Obama, saying that both candidates got asked tough questions. "I'm used to that," she said. "It's nothing compared to the tough decisions you'll have to make in the White House."

She also lambasted Obama for saying that Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, would make a better president than Bush.

"We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain," she said, before outlining her policy plans to change the tax code, renegotiate trade agreements and "get tough on China because they're not following the rules."

Obama mounted a pointed attack on Clinton during a rally Sunday night in Scranton, where her late father, Hugh Rodham, grew up and was buried.

He mocked her for airing a TV commercial that itemized the campaign contributions he has gotten from oil company executives. Clinton's ad was meant to rebut Obama's contention that he is a different sort of candidate because he refuses money from federal lobbyists.

At the rally, Obama accused Clinton, in turn, of accepting substantial campaign donations from Washington lobbyists whose interests run counter to her stated policy goals. The crowd cheered Obama as he laid out his argument, shouting that Clinton was a "liar."

"Understand the argument of the ad that she's making," Obama said. "She's essentially saying, 'I'm bad, but he's just as bad.' What kind of argument is that? What kind of inspirational message is that?"

He added: "We send back money from lobbyists and send money back from [political action committees]. But she just ignores the facts."




By Peter Nicholas and Louise Roug, Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2008