Clinton stumbles over new Russian leader's name

By Jeff Mason

CLEVELAND, Ohio (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, who has argued she would be stronger on foreign policy than rival Barack Obama, stumbled over the name of the likely new Russian president on Tuesday while predicting he would not be an independent leader.

When asked at a debate whether she knew the name of the certain successor to President Vladimir Putin -- Dmitry Medvedev -- Clinton struggled to get it out.

"Medvedev -- whatever," she finally said.

Obama, who fielded a second question on the issue, did not pronounce the name.

In a campaign where the New York senator and former first lady has stressed she is ready to serve as president from the first day, as opposed to Obama, the scene was reminiscent of past campaign debates where foreign policy missteps have hurt presidential candidates.

That included the current president, George W. Bush, failing to remember the names of some foreign leaders in the 2000 campaign.

In Tuesday's debate, Clinton and Obama were critical of Bush's policies on Russia. Clinton said Putin would be pulling the strings, even though Medvedev is set to be elected as his successor as president next weekend.

"I can tell you that he's a hand-picked successor, that he is someone who is obviously being installed by Putin, who Putin can control, who has very little independence," she said.