Obama, Clinton in Dead Heat as Ohio, Texas Elections Draw Near

JIM LEHRER:

The words and actions today in the presidential campaign. Gwen Ifill reports.

GWEN IFILL:

The presidential candidates offered their closing arguments today on the eve of potentially decisive nominating contests in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Hillary Clinton rallied supporters at the University of Toledo, focusing on the issue voters there cite as their chief concern.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), New York: We've got an economy that is not working for most Americans. It works fine if you're wealthy and well-connected, but not if you're a hard-working Ohioan who's wondering, what are you doing?

You're working as hard as you can. Health care costs are up; energy costs are up; gas prices are up. And you're looking at your paycheck getting smaller and smaller by the time you pay for all the necessities. And you're wondering whether anybody in the White House even knows what's going on, aren't you?

Does anybody really care about the hard-working people of Ohio?

AUDIENCE:

You do!

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON:

I do. That's exactly right. I do, because I know, I know that it's the American middle class that built our country. It's not rich people. It's hard-working Ohioans every single year.

GWEN IFILL:

Clinton has also seized on Canadian news reports suggesting one of Barack Obama's economic advisers told officials from the Canadian government that Obama does not really intend to roll back NAFTA, the regionally unpopular trade deal.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON:

We are going after these trade agreements. I've said there should be a timeout on trade agreements. Every one of them should be examined to see whether or not they're working the way they were intended.

This is not supposed to be a race to the bottom. We're supposed to be lifting up other people around to have a better life.

And specifically on NAFTA, I don't just criticize it. And I don't have my campaign go tell a foreign government behind closed doors, "That's just politics. Don't pay any attention." I tell you what I mean. I think we've got to renegotiate NAFTA.

And what I'm going to do is make it very clear: We need core labor and environmental standards. We need to end the provision that lets foreign companies sue to overturn protections for the environment and our workers here in the United States.

And we need to enforce all of these trade agreements. That's why I've called for a trade prosecutor, somebody who will, day in and day out, say to these foreign countries, "Wait a minute. You're not following the rules."