WASHINGTON — The top presidential candidates and their big-name supporters campaigned from coast to coast Sunday, but one contender seemed atop everyone’s mind: Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney contrasted themselves, and each other, with Clinton as though she were the nominee. Her Democratic rival, Barack Obama, played along to a degree, saying Clinton is so polarizing that he is their party’s better bet.
Rather than diverting the less-than-flattering attention, Clinton embraced it.
“I’ve been taking the incoming fire from Republicans for about 16 years now, and I’m still here, because I have been vetted, I have been tested,” she said in a TV interview before campaigning in Missouri and Minneapolis.
“There’s unlikely to be any new surprises,” Clinton added, implying the same cannot be said of Obama, who has been in Congress three years.
Her confidence notwithstanding, polls showed Obama narrowing the lead that Clinton has enjoyed among Democrats nationwide, even as McCain appeared to be pulling away from Romney.
For years the New York senator and former first lady has been an object of fascination, mystery and sometimes scorn by Americans, few of whom seem neutral toward her. She is the Democrat conservatives most love to hate, and McCain and Romney campaigned against her Sunday as if in a proxy battle against one another.
“If we want a party that is indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton on an issue like illegal immigration, we’re going to have John McCain as a nominee,” Romney said. “That’s the wrong way to go.”
McCain, campaigning in Fairfield, Conn., said he has never sought special projects for his state, and added: “In her short time in the United States Senate, the senator from New York, Senator Clinton, got $500 million worth of pork barrel projects. My friends, that kind of thing is going to stop.”
The Clinton fascination is trickier for Obama. He wants to capitalize on Republicans’ opposition to her without agreeing that she is the inevitable nominee.
Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation” before campaigning in Delaware, the Illinois senator said the problem is “not all of Senator Clinton’s making, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Republicans consider her a polarizing figure.”
In a day dominated by familiar stump speeches, Clinton made news by saying she might allow workers’ wages to be garnisheed if they refuse to buy health insurance. She has criticized Obama for pushing a health plan that she says would not require universal coverage.
Pressed on how she would enforce her mandate, Clinton said: “I think there are a number of mechanisms” that are possible, including “going after people’s wages, automatic enrollment.”
She said such measures would apply only to workers who can afford health coverage but refuse to buy it, which puts undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms. Under her plan, she said, health care “will be affordable for everyone” because she would limit premium payments “to a low percent of your income.”
Obama has said he would require parents to buy health insurance for children, and possibly fine them if they refused. But he would not insist that all adults buy insurance.
Meanwhile, campaigning in a western suburb of Chicago, Romney took a swipe at Obama, again as a means of nicking McCain.
“Yesterday Barack Obama said there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between he and Senator McCain on illegal immigration,” Romney told a crowd at the College of DuPage. “I’m afraid it’s going to be real hard to win the White House if there’s not much difference between our nominee and theirs, and that’s why I’m going to make sure that we stand for Republican ideals and win the White House on that platform.”
McCain largely shrugged off such jibes, although he said he is “much more conservative” than Romney.
He told reporters that despite polls showing him with a 20-point lead over Romney, “I’m incredibly nervous, and I’ve seen that movie before.”
A third GOP candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, struggled for attention and rejected suggestions that he step aside.
“I’ll stay in until someone has 1,191 delegates,” he said from Kennesaw, Ga., referring to the number of convention delegates needed to secure the GOP nod. “A year ago, nobody said I’d still be here. Look who’s still on his feet.”
More than half of all delegates available nationally, for both parties, are up for grabs Tuesday when 24 states will hold primaries and caucuses, with West Virginia holding its Republican convention.
Getting out the Hispanic vote
A group focused on Hispanic health issues planned to announce today an effort to send more than a million text messages to cell phones to remind and encourage people to vote in the presidential preference contests.
The National Alliance for Hispanic Health plans a first wave of 25,000 text messages to remind voters to go to the polls in more than 20 states with primaries or caucuses on Tuesday.
The group, which assists 100 million people a year, then will expand the Vote for Your Health/Vota Por Tu Salud campaign to all states for November’s general election.
Associated Press
Presidential race nationally
n Pew Research Center poll:
DEMOCRATS
Hillary Rodham Clinton: 46 percent
Barack Obama: 38 percent
REPUBLICANS
John McCain: 42 percent
Mitt Romney: 22 percent
Mike Huckabee: 20 percent
Ron Paul: 5 percent
The Pew Research Center for the People &the Press poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points for Democrats and Democratic-leaning registered voters, and plus or minus 5 percentage points for Republicans or Republican-leaning registered voters.
n Washington Post-ABC News poll:
DEMOCRATS
Hillary Rodham Clinton: 47 percent
Barack Obama: 43 percent
REPUBLICANS
John McCain: 48 percent
Mitt Romney: 24 percent
Mike Huckabee: 16 percent
Ron Paul: 7 percent
The Washington Post-ABC News poll has a margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points for Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, and plus or minus 5 percentage points for Republicans and GOP-leaning independents
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