Dems Clash Over NAFTA One Week Before Big Texas, Ohio Contests

With just over a week to go before four big primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, and Vermont, the Democratic candidates spent the weekend clashing over the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Barack Obama says he has always opposed the trade deal and accused Hillary Clinton of trying to walk away from a long record of support for NAFTA. Obama says the deal agreed to by President Bill Clinton cost 50,000 jobs in Ohio. But he says repealing it now would probably result in more job losses than gains.

A spokesman for Clinton fired back saying she was critical of NAFTA long before she ran for President and that Obama said in 2004 that the U.S. benefited enormously from exports under NAFTA.

Campaigning yesterday in Rhode Island, Clinton suggested Obama is naive about dealing with issues like health care reform and global warming. She said no one can wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear.

Meanwhile, neither Obama nor Clinton reacted kindly to Ralph Nader's announcement that he'll be running again for president as a third-party candidate. Many Democrats still blame him for costing Al Gore the election in 2000.

Obama says it's clear that Nader didn't know what he was talking about when he said he hadn't found any differences back then between Gore and George W. Bush. Clinton acknowledges his candidacy won't be helpful to the Democratic nominee, but says "it's a free country."

Nader responded by saying that there's no way his entry will tip the election to a "pro-war" McCain.

On the GOP side, the Democratic national committee wants federal campaign finance regulators to look into John McCain's campaign. They want to know if the Republican front-runner's decision to withdraw from the primary election's public financing system violates election laws.

McCain has said he wants to avoid spending limits until the Republican convention.
February 25, 2008

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Some Views and Information about NAFTA:
http://www.citizen.org/trade/nafta/
http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/Policy/NAFTA/nafta.asp
http://www.tradeagreements.gov/AboutFTAs/index.htm
http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Agreements/Regional/NAFTA/Section_Index.html
NAFTA TEXT:
http://www.nafta-sec-alena.org/DefaultSite/index_e.aspx?DetailID=78

A bit about Ralph Nader:
http://www.nader.org/index.php?/categories/6-Biography
http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm (this one is not very "official," but it does offer a valid viewpoint and they do include a long list of their sources)

DISCUSSION IDEAS:
What do you think is more important: what the candidates say now about issues like NAFTA, or what their history of support is?

When you consider the pros and cons of Free Trade, is your context your own country or the world? What does your answer mean to you? To political candidates?

If you visited the sites listed above regarding NAFTA, what do you think about the presentation of NAFTA by the U.S. government?

Why do you think Ralph Nader saw no difference between Al Gore and George Bush in the 2000 Presidential race?

REMEMBER TO BE RESPECTFUL
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