STEVE INSKEEP, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And I'm Renee Montagne.
We're about to talk with the Democratic candidate who was, until recently, the front-runner in New Hampshire's presidential primary. Senator Hillary Clinton now trails Barack Obama, and the voting is tomorrow. Joining us on the line from her campaign bus is Senator Hillary Clinton. Good morning.
Senator HILLARY CLINTON (Democrat, New York; Presidential Candidate): Good morning, Renee.
MONTAGNE: And do you happen to know where exactly in New Hampshire you are?
Sen. CLINTON: I am. I'm in Concord, New Hampshire. And I'm just waking up here on the bus.
MONTAGNE: Yeah, you slept on it, I take it, or at least got some sleep on it.
Sen. CLINTON: Well, I didn't sleep on the bus, but it sometimes feels that way when we're crisscrossing the country like this.
MONTAGNE: First and a question, I think, a lot of people would like to know. Can you afford to lose in New Hampshire?
Sen. CLINTON: Well, Renee, obviously I'm going to work as hard as I can today and tomorrow to reach as many voters with, you know, my message about my candidacy and then go on. I've always intended to run a national campaign, and I have prepared to do so from the very beginning. So we'll go right through the February 5th states.
MONTAGNE: Over the weekend, you've been telling voters that they should elect a doer, not a talker and saying that in various ways. What are you trying to say about your rival Senator Barack Obama?
Sen. CLINTON: Well, what I'm asking voters to do is to look at each of us and contrast and compare our records, our plans, our experiences in order to get the facts that are relevant to making a decision. You know, I would not be running for president if I didn't think that I was the best qualified person to really tackle the problems that we face in our country and the world at this time.
And I think that it is important to look at what each of us brings to this race. And there is a difference in how we approach problems, what we have done over the last years to solve problems. You know, if you want to know what I'll do, look at what I've done. And I think that there's a contrast here, between, you know, talking and doing and between rhetoric and reality that is an important one.
MONTAGNE: What, senator, though, what makes him a talker rather than a doer?
Sen. CLINTON: Well, I think that if you look at the results that I've been able to bring about to improve people's lives, even here in New Hampshire. You know, a program that I helped to start, the Children's Health Insurance Program, gives health care to 7,000 kids and bipartisan legislation that I was able to push through the Senate and then the House to get in to law over a threat of a veto, gives health care to National Guard and Reserves.
And, you know, working on issues ranging from respite care for caregivers to improving the adoption and foster care systems, just - so many ways that I've been working to make people's lives better and…
MONTAGNE: Well, clearly, you have done these things. But what makes Senator Obama merely a talker, someone with rhetoric, but nothing behind him, beyond that?
Sen. CLINTON: Well, you know, in the debate that we had here in New Hampshire the other night, the moderators asked all of us, you know, what we've done. What is our favorite, most important accomplishment and I think in both Senator Edwards and Senator Obama's case, there was a real contrast.
Senator Edwards said that he had passed a patient's bill of rights and in fact, of course, it never did pass the Congress and it was never signed in to law. And Senator Obama said, well, he had helped to pass lobbying reforms so that lobbyists couldn't have lunch with members of Congress. I think it was Charlie Gibson, the moderator, who said, well wait a minute, they can have lunch standing up. They just can't have lunch sitting down. So I think it's important to begin to actually take the records that each of us bring to this race.
You know, we don't have good guides in life to anything that we do, based just on what we say. We always look behind that. I mean, if we're going to choose any important - make any important decision, you're going to want to know what's behind it. And that's all that I'm asking. I have the greatest respect and regard for Senator Obama. I think he is an incredibly gifted politician who has been extremely, you know, positive in putting himself forward.
MONTAGNE: One thing, though, your…
Sen. CLINTON: But, as we pick a Democratic nominee, I really think we've got to go deeper than that, and that's what I am asking.
MONTAGNE: Our correspondent David Greene told us earlier this morning that your campaign is urging reporters to look deeper, but in this case, more closely at Barack Obama's record. What do you think is there?
Sen. CLINTON: Well, Renee, take for example what Senator Obama said two weeks ago, not about me, but about Senator Edwards. He said that Senator Edwards changing positions between 2004 and 2008 would make him unelectable in the general election. Well, in fact, Senator Obama has a very obvious record of changing positions from the time he ran for the Senate, his early years in the Senate, and now, of course, running for president.
Well, if he's going to say that records matter - which he has said on numerous occasions - and if he's going to point to another opponent as being unelectable for changing positions, then clearly that's a criterion that he's trying to get voters to judge others on. Therefore, I think, it is more than fair to judge him as well.
So when he says he's going to vote against the Patriot Act and he goes to the Congress and votes for it, or when he says that he is against special interests and lobbyists and he has a lobbyist running his campaign in New Hampshire. For any other candidate, that would be relevant information, and I think that is relevant in this case as well.
MONTAGNE: Senator Clinton, thank you very much.
Sen. CLINTON: Thank you very much, Renee.
MONTAGNE: Hillary Clinton speaking to us from her campaign bus this morning in New Hampshire.