Pat Dollard | Young Americans

The Swamp:

Sen. Hillary Clinton, contending that she is running ahead of Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic primary vote count - counting the disputed votes of Florida and Michigan - said today that she has “closed the gap” with Obama in Indiana and North Carolina.

“This is going to be exciting tomorrow, because I started very far behind,” Clinton said of Tuesday’s primary elections this morning in an interview with CNN’s John Roberts. “I think we’ve closed the gap…. Obviously I hope to do as well as possible.

“More people have voted for me,” Clinton said of the long-contested Democratic primary season - reminded by Roberts that that count includes Michigan and Florida. “Those were real votes,” Clinton replied. “The delegates haven’t been decided. (But) the people have voted, that’s a fact.”

Asked if winning Tuesday’s primaries would cement her case that she should be the party’s nominee, she said: “I’ve been making the case that I would be the stronger candidate and the better nominee against Sen. McCain… We have to follow the rules, until it’s clear who the nominee is going to be.”

Clinton, who has campaigned lately on a summer gas-tax holiday, was asked in the interview from Greenville, N.C., if she will make that happen next summer - should gas prices still be high and should she be elected president.

“I’m sure gonna try,” Clinton said, noting that her opponent opposes the tax break. “Sen. Obama doesn’t want to give consumers a break, I do. I want the oil companies to pay the tax this summer out of their record profits.

“I think I have the responsible position to give people relief right now,” Clinton said. “I think we can do both a short-term relief program and begin to implement my longer-term relief program… move people toward higher gas-mileage type cars.

She also was reminded that Robert Reich, labor secretary during President Bill Clinton’s administration and a supporter of Obama now, had said this of the gas tax holiday: “It’s stupid and it’s dumb and I don’t why Hillary Clinton proposed it.”

She said: “Maybe we can educate him… I think if you look at all of the issues that I’ve taken on, that is what I am running for…. I am for keeping people in their homes… I’m for getting health care insurance for everyone… My opponent is in favor leaving people out.

Clinton was asked if she had “gone too far” in saying that Iran could be “obliterated” if it launched a nuclear attack against Israel. “No, I didn’t,” she said.

“We need to make it very clear, like we did during the Cold War, when thousands of missiles were pointed at us… that there is a price to be paid,” she said. “When the question was asked, what would the United States do if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel… I said there would be massive retaliation.”

Does that mean nuclear?

“Massive retaliation… I think that speaks for itself,” she said. “We have to say clearly to the Iranian people, there would be a very, very high price to pay.”

Obama, asked about this in an earlier interview today on CNN, said; “If Israel was attacked, we would respond forcefully… Using the word obliterate, however, is the kind of language we’ve heard George Bush use.”

If Iran attacked Israel with a nuclear weapon, would he use the U.S. nuclear arsenal? “I’m not going to speculate.”