Clinton aides say Obama used another politician’s lines

Campaign rhetoric borrowed by Sen. Barack Obama from a political friend prompted charges of plagiarism by his rival Monday as the competition for the Democratic presidential nomination turned into a war over words.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign criticized Obama over phrasing of a weekend speech that resembled remarks made by Deval Patrick during his successful Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign in 2006.

The Obama campaign fired back that the words were offered by Patrick, a friend and political ally, to Obama’s speechwriters, and that Clinton herself has adopted Obama’s rhetoric in other settings.

Obama sought to dismiss the imbroglio as a distraction from the economic problems faced by increasing numbers of Americans. “I don’t think . . . that’s really the kind of stuff that the workers here are concerned about,” Obama told reporters after touring a metal manufacturing plant in Niles, Ohio.

The spat came as Democratic primaries are being held today in Wisconsin, a key state where recent polls give Obama a slight edge, and in Hawaii.

Videos of the Obama and Patrick speeches were posted side by side on YouTube Sunday. Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s top communications advisor, was joined by Rep. Jim McGovern, a Clinton and Patrick supporter from Massachusetts, in a 50-minute conference call raising the issue with reporters Monday.

Wolfson and McGovern slammed Obama over the borrowed phrasing. Wolfson sought to link it with an earlier Clinton campaign charge that Obama had borrowed portions of his economic proposal from the New York senator’s campaign, that he had echoed John Edwards’ rhetoric in his speech announcing his candidacy, and that he had reneged on a promise to accept public financing for the general election.

“If you’re asking an electorate to judge you on your promises and you break them, and on your rhetoric and you lift it, there are fundamental questions that are raised about that campaign and about that candidacy,” Wolfson said.

In response to a reporter’s question, Wolfson also pointed to the Obama campaign theme of “Yes, we can,” echoing the Spanish-language slogan that once was the rallying cry of Cesar Chavez: “Si, se puede.”

Clinton, in response to a question from reporters on her campaign plane, added her voice to her staff’s criticism of Obama. “If your whole candidacy is about words, they should be your own words,” she said. “That’s what I think.”

The Obama campaign countered with a list of what it said were instances in which Clinton had used Obama catch phrases.

“I really don’t think this is too big of a deal,” Obama told reporters. “When Sen. Clinton says, ‘It’s time to turn the page’ in one of her stump speeches or says she’s ‘fired up and ready to go,’ I don’t think that anybody sort of suggests that somehow she’s not focused on the issues that she’s focused on.”

Obama did say that he “should have” credited Patrick.

Obama’s speech, delivered Saturday at a political dinner in Wisconsin, was an attempt to counter Clinton’s criticism that Obama’s campaign is built on rhetoric while hers is built on action -- an echo of the political charge made against Patrick that sparked his 2006 speech. “Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” Obama said. “ ‘I have a dream’ -- just words? ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’ -- just words? ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself’ -- just words?”

Patrick told the New York Times that he had offered the rhetoric to Obama’s speechwriters as a rejoinder to the Clinton criticisms.

“Deval and I do trade ideas all the time,” Obama said Monday. “He had suggested that we use these lines. I thought they were good lines.”

scott.martelle@latimes.com