Obama takes on rivals over economic woes

JANESVILLE, Wisconsin (Reuters) - Buoyed by a string of eight consecutive victories, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama bashed rival Hillary Clinton over the ailing U.S. economy on Wednesday and also took aim at Republican front-runner John McCain.

The Illinois senator, a day after sweeping three more Democratic presidential contests, unveiled an initiative to produce 5 million new jobs in the green energy sector and promised to create a development bank that would invest $60 billion to rebuild the nation's infrastructure.

"We are not standing on the brink of recession due to forces beyond our control," Obama said in Wisconsin, which holds the next Democratic nominating contest on Tuesday.

"It was a failure of leadership and imagination in Washington -- the culmination of decades of decisions that were made or put off without regard to the realities of a global economy."

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president if he wins the November election, made his remarks at a Janesville, Wisconsin plant that produces General Motors' popular sport utility vehicles and has been seen as vulnerable to being closed.

He used the occasion to criticize both his main rivals, Democrat Clinton and Republican McCain, saying they had wasted billions of dollars and cost thousands of lives by supporting an unnecessary war in Iraq as U.S. senators.

He accused Clinton of changing her stance on the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, saying she supported it when it was signed but now says "we need a time-out on trade."

"I don't know about a time-out, but I do know this -- when I am president, I will not sign another trade agreement unless it has protections for our environment and protections for American workers," Obama said, adding he would end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.

Clinton aides said Obama's ideas for an infrastructure development bank and 5 million green energy sector jobs were taken from her own campaign proposals.

"If Senator Obama cannot produce his own ideas on the campaign trail, how will he solve new problems as president?" asked Neera Tanden, Clinton's policy director.

McCAIN MOMENTUM

McCain, riding his own wave of momentum after sweeping the Republican primaries on Tuesday in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland, fired back on Iraq, saying developments showed Democrats had been premature in demanding a withdrawal of U.S. forces.

"They said that we would never succeed militarily, then we began to succeed militarily," McCain said in Washington after picking up the endorsement of Republican leaders in the House of Representatives.

While Obama campaigned in Wisconsin, Clinton focused on contests in the heavily populated states of Ohio and Texas in three weeks as her best hope to stop Obama's surge.

Tuesday's victories gave Obama scores of additional pledged delegates to the Democratic Party's presidential nominating convention in August.

Obama had 1,078 pledged delegates to Clinton's 969, according to a count by MSNBC, and his campaign said it was unlikely the former first lady would be able to catch up. A candidate needs 2,025 to clinch the Democratic nomination.

"We believe it's next to impossible for Senator Clinton to close that pledged delegate count," said David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager. "The only way she could do it is winning most of the rest of the contests by 25 to 30 points."

Guy Cecil, political director for the Clinton campaign, said after the March 4 contests in Ohio and Texas the total delegate count between the two candidates would be within 25.

The former first lady, who would be the first female president, spent the day campaigning in Texas, courting Hispanic voters, and launched a series of new ads aimed at Ohio and Texas.

She shrugged off Tuesday's losses, saying Obama had been expected to win the contests and congratulating him on his victory. But she issued a challenge, saying: "Tell him to meet me in Texas. We're ready."

The New York senator dismissed Obama's criticism over the economy, saying his plans fell short on extending health care to all Americans, on dealing with the mortgage crisis and expanding the use of renewable energy.

"I don't know how you take on the economy and produce real results for people if you don't stay focused on how we're going to create the good new jobs of the future," she said. "It's a difference between promises and solutions."

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan, John Whitesides and Andy Sullivan, writing by David Alexander; editing by David Wiessler)

(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)