CLINTON, McCAIN CAMPS TRASH OBAMA SPEECH ON ECONOMY

A speech Senator Obama gave yesterday touting his plans to reinvigorate the American economy was quickly trashed by the campaigns of his Democratic opponent, Senator Clinton, and of the front-runner for the Republican nomination, Senator McCain. In what was billed as a “major economic policy address” at a General Motors plant in Wisconsin, Mr. Obama railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement and promised to create a national infrastructure bank to fund $60 billion in projects over 10 years. “Obama’s plan today is the most shameless piece of potential plagiarism that I have ever seen,” an adviser to Mr. McCain, Kevin Hassett told Bloomberg News. “He basically took Clinton’s words and Clinton’s policies and called them his own. If I were a professor I’d give him an F and try to get him kicked out of school for something this terrible.”

Mrs. Clinton’s policy adviser, Neera Tanden, also hit Mr. Obama for a lack of originality. “His ‘new’ proposal for a national infrastructure bank is one that Hillary proposed August 8, 2007,” Ms. Tanden said, while acknowledging that Senators Dodd of Connecticut and Hagel of Nebraska were the main sponsors of the bill.

“If the Clinton campaign ever bothered to check their facts before attacking, they’d know that Barack Obama’s comprehensive energy plan to create millions of new jobs was introduced a month before Senator Clinton’s, and that his infrastructure plan invests billions more than hers does to rebuild our roads, bridges, and schools,” an aide to Mr. Obama, William Burton, replied.

SHARPTON REJECTS NAACP STANCE ON FLA., MICH. DELEGATES

The Reverend Al Sharpton is parting company with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons by urging the Democratic Party not to seat convention delegations from Florida and Michigan, which were stripped of their delegates for moving their primaries out of the window authorized by the national party. “I firmly believe that changing the rules now, and seating delegates from Florida and Michigan at this point would not only violate the Democratic party’s rules of fairness, but also would be a grave injustice,” Rev. Sharpton wrote in a letter to the Democratic chairman, Howard Dean. “Changing the rules in the middle of a presidential contest is patently unfair both to the candidates … and to Democratic voters everywhere.”

Rev. Sharpton’s letter appeared to be a rebuttal to a missive in which the NAACP chairman, Julian Bond, complained to Dr. Dean that refusing to seat the delegations would disenfranchise voters in those states.

Senator Clinton won both states, though no campaigning was permitted and Senator Obama’s name was not on the ballot in Michigan.

McCAIN AIDE WELCOMES AGE DEBATE WITH OBAMA

The McCain campaign is signaling that it is not afraid of the stark contrast in age between the likely Republican nominee and Senator Obama, who has emerged as the front-runner over Senator Clinton for the Democratic nod. Senator McCain is 71, and Senator Obama, 46, has taken to praising his “half-century of service” to America as a backhanded compliment aimed at drawing attention to his advancing years.

The line drew chuckles from a knowing audience in Baltimore on Monday. “It’s nice of him to constantly point out how nice he thinks of John McCain and his half-century of service to our country,” Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, told reporters in Washington yesterday, according to Politico.com. “I don’t think he can get that out enough.”

CLINTON FUND-RAISER AT HUNTER NOW WEDNESDAY

Senator Clinton is expected back in the City for a fund-raiser next Wednesday night at Hunter College in Manhattan. The event, reported in this column yesterday, was moved up in a reshuffle of her schedule.