Democrats gearing up for key Pennsylvania vote
Tuesday, 22 Apr 2008 10:15
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama face a crucial vote in Pennsylvania
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Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have traded insults ahead of a crucial vote in Pennsylvania.
Though former first lady Ms Clinton is expected to win Tuesday's vote, anything less than a double-digit victory could see her campaign for the Democratic party's nomination for the US presidency derailed.
The New York senator is trailing Mr Obama in the delegate count - he has 1,645 to her 1,507, according to the Associated Press news agency - but could keep her bid for the White House alive with a win in Pennsylvania, the last of the major US states to hold an electoral primary.
Ms Clinton and Illinois senator Mr Obama traded barbs at the weekend, after Mr Obama had said that either Democrat candidate would be a better president than Republican candidate John McCain and "all three of us would be better than George Bush".
Ms Clinton's team took Mr Obama's comments to be an endorsement for Arizona senator Mr McCain and she told an audience in the steel town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: "We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain, and I will be that nominee."
Mr Obama has hit out at what he calls Ms Clinton's "slash-and-burn, say-anything, do-anything special interest-driven politics".
"Trying to score cheap political points... doesn't make for good government," he added.
Pennsylvania returns 158 delegates to the Democratic National Convention and a recent MSNBC/McClatchy poll put Ms Clinton ahead of Mr Obama by 48 per cent to 43, a drop from the previous double-digit lead shown in earlier polls. 