Edwards doubts Clinton's passion to end war
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards tried Sunday to draw clearer distinctions between himself and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, including raising questions about her commitment to ending the war in Iraq.
His comments come as polls, including a new one in Iowa, say Clinton is gaining ground across the country and in the state that hosts the first caucuses.
“I saw in the last couple of days that one of Sen. Clinton’s primary military advisers said that she does not oppose the war in Iraq, she’s never heard her say that she opposes the war in Iraq. My question is how do you end the war if you don’t oppose it? I oppose this war. I want it to be brought to an end. I will bring it to an end as president of the United States,” Edwards told a crowd of people gathered outside his campaign field office on East River Drive in Davenport.
Edwards was referring to a report in a New Hampshire newspaper Saturday that quoted a Clinton adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy saying that she — Kennedy — does not oppose the war, and that “I have not ever heard (Clinton) say, ‘I oppose the war.’” Kennedy said she’s heard Clinton say troops need to be withdrawn, the paper said.
Asked later whether Clinton does not oppose the war, Edwards said: “I don’t know. I take her adviser at her word.” He said if she does not, it would be a significant difference.
Clinton was campaigning in eastern Iowa on Sunday.
“As Sen. Edwards knows, Sen. Clinton opposes this war and is trying to do everything she can to end it as quickly as she can — a goal that she and Gen. Kennedy share,” a Clinton spokesman, Mark Daley, said Sunday.
Edwards, the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2004, also contrasted his own plan for getting out of Iraq — while keeping what he calls a quick strike force in the region — with Clinton’s ideas for what to do there.
“From my perspective, continuing combat missions is
continuing the war,” Edwards told the crowd. He also faulted Clinton for voting for a measure that declared Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, which he said is what President Bush wanted.
“If George Bush goes to war six months from now, are we going to hear again if only I knew now what I knew then?” he asked. “I’ve learned my lesson and I’ve learned it the hard way.“
Edwards, a former U.S. sentator from North Carolina, voted for the 2002 authorization to go to war. He has since said it was a mistake and apologized. Last week, US. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., argued in appearances in Iowa that there would have been no war if the 2002 measure had not passed.
In the interview, Edwards said he did not know whether that was true. “Nobody can predict that with certainty. It’s impossible to know what George Bush would do,” he said.
Edwards’ stop in Davenport came the same day the Des Moines Register reported that Clinton had opened a lead in Iowa. The newspaper’s Iowa Poll said 29 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers support Clinton, while 23 percent were for Edwards and 22 percent for Obama. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
Polls earlier this year said Edwards, who has traveled often in the state since beginning his bid for the presidency five months ago, had a solid lead.
Edwards blamed television advertising by Clinton and Obama, but he also maintained the race in Iowa is close. “The nuanced differences between where she is, where I am and Sen. Obama are is very small,” Edwards said.
“If somebody’s up two points or down one point, that could be literally nothing except noise.”
At his rally in Davenport, he continued to enjoy enthusiastic support, including from members of the United Steelworkers union, which has endorsed him. On an unusually hot day for October, Edwards, speaking with a bullhorn, stuck with his campaign’s theme that he represents real change in Washington, D.C., not just incremental differences with the Republicans.
Melva Lewis, a retired teacher from Bettendorf, said she supported Edwards in 2004, when he finished second in Iowa, and is backing him again. She said they see eye-to-eye on a number of issues. “He’s got the guts to pull it off,” Lewis said.
Edwards also made a stop in Muscatine, where he picked up the endorsement of Iowa Rep. Nathan Reichert, D-Muscatine.
Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com.