Clinton tries to turn her rival’s words against him

YORK, PA. —  With just days to go before Tuesday’s crucial Pennsylvania primary, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton took aim again at rival Sen. Barack Obama’s rhetoric, suggesting that she is the more substantive candidate for the presidency.

“I’m not here just to talk in generalities and make you feel good,” she told supporters Saturday. “I’m here to tell you specifically what I’ll do.”

The specific topic was the economy -- which she used as ammunition against China.

“Our economy runs on foreign money and foreign oil,” Clinton said. “We are totally at their mercy. It works for them, [but] it doesn’t work for us.”

She also accused China of “building a blue-water navy to contest us in the Pacific.” Although Clinton often criticizes China on the campaign trail, she has recently stepped up her rhetoric.

Clinton, who once held a wide lead in Pennsylvania, now has a single-digit advantage, according to most polls.

Nationally, Obama leads in pledged delegates as well as the popular vote, and Clinton needs a clear-cut win to fuel her bid for the presidency.

The New York senator tried to turn Obama’s words against him as she campaigned in five cities Saturday.

“Can we? Yes, we can,” she said in West Lawn. “But that’s not the right question.” The real question, she told supporters in a half-full gym at Wilson Senior High School, is “Will we?”

The crowd began chanting “Yes, we will. Yes, we will,” echoing Obama’s well-known slogan, “Yes, we can.”

During the long day of campaigning, there were other veiled strikes at her rival.

“I don’t want to show up and give one of those whoop-de-do speeches,” she told a crowd of about 300 in a sweltering parking lot outside a West Chester firehouse. “I want everyone thinking about what we have to do. That’s why I’ve tried to be very specific in this campaign.”

In York, she told hundreds of voters at an afternoon rally: “Instead of attacking the problem, he chooses to attack my solutions.”

She also charged that Obama’s healthcare plan leaves out 15 million people, reprising an old argument between them.

At the end of the day, at California University in California, Pa., Clinton said Obama “always says in his speeches that he’s running a positive campaign, but then his campaign does the opposite.”

Despite several broadsides against the Illinois senator in recent weeks, Clinton’s lead has continued to shrink in Pennsylvania. Her campaign strategists have tried to downplay expectations before Tuesday’s vote, saying they believe it will be a close contest.

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louise.roug@latimes.com