NEWMARKET, N.H. (AP) – John Edwards says it’s past time for his Democratic presidential rivals – Hillary Rodham Clinton in particular – to spell out just what they would do about Iraq.
Edwards, speaking to voters in a New Hampshire music hall Tuesday, said his rivals aren’t being honest about Iraq and should have to say whether they would continue combat missions and how soon they would bring all U.S. troops home.
“If you believe what Senator Clinton believes, then you can support her,” Edwards said. “But if you believe that we need to bring this war to an end by getting all combat troops out and ending combat missions in Iraq, that is what I will do as president of the United States.”
A Clinton spokeswoman said Edwards’ own positions should give voters concern.
“Senator Edwards’ entire campaign has devolved into a daily routine of negative personal attacks. He’s a far cry from the John Edwards of 2004 who rose to prominence by decrying personal attacks against other Democrats,” Kathleen Strand said.
Clinton has said some troops will have to remain to continue fighting terrorism in Iraq and the region.
During a debate at Dartmouth College, she said she wouldn’t commit to any specific timetable: “It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting.”
“To me, that’s not ending the war,” Edwards said. “Ending the war is getting our troops out and ending our combat missions.
Edwards, far behind Clinton in national surveys, has criticized her ever more intensely in the past few weeks. The former North Carolina senator, who was his party’s vice presidential nominee in 2004, has made his outsider status a cornerstone of his campaign – as well as his opposition to Clinton on war issues.
On Tuesday, he renewed his criticism of Clinton’s Senate vote in favor of calling Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. He said the vote helps President Bush march to war with Iran.
“We’ve seen this movie. These people have got to be stopped,” Edwards said. “Voters need to know what choices they have. I don’t believe you can say, ‘I’ll stand up to Bush on invading Iran’ and then vote with him when the vote comes.”
Later, at a town hall-style meeting in Portsmouth, Edwards said any leeway Bush gets will be abused.
“It is so important we don’t give this president an inch when it comes to Iran,” Edwards said standing inside a church.
Meanwhile, the Edwards campaign launched a 60-second TV ad called “Heroes,” a slightly modified version of an earlier ad that first aired in Iowa. In it, Edwards calls on the Democratic Party to speak out for working people. The ad neither mentions nor alludes to any of his rivals.
As Edwards speaks, the ad displays the faces of more than a dozen people – a hospital patient, a nurse, a cafe waitress, a mother kissing her child.
“It is time for our party, the Democratic Party, to show a little backbone, to have a little guts, to stand up for working men and women,” Edwards says. “If we are not their voice, they will never have a voice.”
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Associated Press Writer Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington contributed to this report.
AP-ES-11-06-07 1822EST
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