Pressured, Clinton embraces Obama

Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C.

Facing fresh campaign anxieties, Hillary Clinton is attaching herself to President Barack Obama, hoping to overcome liberal enthusiasm for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with a full-throated embrace of her one-time rival and boss.

Central to that strategy: shoring up her standing with African-American voters who helped make Obama the first black president and who could determine her fate if she falters in the first-to-vote contests of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Clinton, Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day on the steps of the South Carolina statehouse – which, for the first time, was celebrated with no Confederate flag flying overhead. The event was replete with Obama’s influence: as Clinton’s two main challengers marched to the capitol, hundreds of faithful chanted the president’s campaign mantra, “Fired Up. Ready to Go!”

Clinton’s alignment with Obama, who remains popular with Democrats, was on full display at Sunday night’s final debate before the Iowa caucuses.

Presenting herself as his heir-apparent, Clinton warned that Sanders’ universal health care plan threatened to reopen a contentious debate with Republicans that could undermine the so-called “Obamacare” law.

“To start over again with a whole new debate is something that I think would set us back. The Republicans just voted last week to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and thank goodness, President Obama vetoed it and saved Obamacare for the American people,” Clinton said.

And she resurrected comments Sanders had made about Obama before his re-election, suggesting the president would have benefited from a primary challenge.

“He’s criticized President Obama for taking donations from Wall Street, and President Obama has led our country out of the Great Recession,” Clinton said. “Senator Sanders called him weak, disappointing. He even, in 2011, publicly sought someone to run in a primary against President Obama.”