Hillary Clinton attacked Barack Obama for not supporting gun rights and Obama’s labor surrogates returned fire by reminding voters of her support for the Iraq war in separate mailers to Indiana voters shortly before the state’s May 6 primary.
One side of Clinton’s Hoosier mail piece features a large photo of a gun and a smaller head shot of Obama. It asks,” Where does Barack Obama really stand on guns?” The other side it answers, “Depends on who Barack Obama is talking to” and notes “just this month, Barack Obama accused people in rural places and small towns of being ‘bitter’ people who ‘cling to guns.’”
As Clinton’s anti-Obama mailer was hitting Indiana mailboxes, a pro-Obama piece was distributed by the Service Employees International Union, which has endorsed Obama for president. The SEIU mailer did not mention Clinton outright, but implicitly reminded voters of Clinton’s 2002 vote to authorize President Bush to go to war in Iraq.
One side of the mailer features a soldier holding a gun. It says, “It isn’t just about who will bring them home.”
“It’s a question of WHO VOTED to SEND THEM to IRAQ in the first place,” it says on the other side. “BARACK OBAMA is the only Democrat who opposed Bush’s misguided war from the beginning. BARACK OBAMA understands that the high costs of Bush’s war has been just too high.” The piece notes over 4,000 American troops have been killed in the war.
The Indiana Democratic primary will be held on Tuesday, May 6—the same day North Carolina will hold theirs. The Real Clear Politics poll average gives Clinton a 5.8 percent edge in Indiana and favors Obama by 7 points in North Carolina.