00:01:48
ITN
Clinton: 'Obama could beat McCain'
Clinton: 'Obama could beat McCain'
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has said her rival Barack Obama could win the White House.The pair have appeared at a public debate less than a week ahead of a critical primary contest in Pennsylvania.While both candidates said they believed either of them could defeat Republican John McCain, they declined to offer their rival the vice presidential slot.When pressed whether she thought Senator Obama could win in November and beat back attacks from Republicans, the former First Lady said: "Yes, yes, yes. Now I think that I can do a better job. Obviously that's why I'm here."Asked a similar question about whether Mrs Clinton could be the next president, Mr Obama said, "Absolutely and I've said so before," a not-so-subtle response to frequent claims by Mrs Clinton's aides that he could lead the Democrats to defeat in the fall.With ten contests remaining, Mr Obama has a nearly unassailable lead in pledged delegates, but neither candidate is likely to gain enough delegates to win without help from nearly 800 Democratic Party officials and insiders who are free to back any candidate.During the debate, Mr Obama tried to clarify his remarks about small-town residents and said Mrs Clinton had "beat it to death" on the campaign trail.Mr Obama has been under heavy fire from both Mrs Clinton and Mr McCain, who called him elitist and out of touch for saying small-town residents in the state were clinging to religion and guns in bitterness over their economic struggles."The problem that we have in our politics, which is fairly typical, is that you take one person's statement, if it's not properly phrased, and you just beat it to death, and that's what Senator Clinton's been doing over the last four days," Mr Obama said."It would be pretty impossible for me to be condescending to people of faith when I'm a person of faith."Both candidates vowed again to pull US troops out of Iraq.If elected, Mrs Clinton said she would immediately call together her military leadership and develop a plan to begin withdrawing forces within 60 days.Mr Obama said he would live up to his pledge to pull troops out within a year of taking office, but said that he would take the military's "recommendations into consideration."On Iran, they agreed the United States should respond forcefully if it obtains nuclear weapons and uses them against Israel."An attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation by the United States," Mrs Clinton said.Mr Obama said: "The US would take appropriate action."The debate was the 21st of the campaign for the nomination, an epic struggle that could last weeks or even months longer.
ITN | April 17, 2008
