<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/washington/04candidates.html? _r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all>
Asked repeatedly about the woman who is perceived as his most formidable challenge in the primary, Mr. Obama has been careful not to criticize Mrs. Clinton directly. But one of his central messages is that he is something Mrs. Clinton is not: a late baby boomer (he was born in 1961, at the tail end of the post-World War II generation; Mrs. Clinton was born in 1947), and a fresh face that rises above old partisan grudges.
Mr. Obama has already provided some hints of how he would position himself against Mrs. Clinton, suggesting he would link her to her husband’s presidency and their role in the intense partisanship that marked much of the 1990s and that carried over into the Bush presidency.
During a lengthy interview just before the midterm elections, Mr. Obama portrayed himself as part of a new generation of political leaders. Asked whether he detected a void in the Democratic presidential field, Mr. Obama replied that he sensed a mood of “Do we want to get beyond the slash-and-burn, highly ideological politics that bogged us down over the last several decades?”
Mr. Obama went on to say that he admired former President Bill Clinton for trying to bridge a centrist course between Democrats and Republicans. But he did not shy away from pointing out Mr. Clinton’s weaknesses — as someone who came of age in the 1960s, and all the debates about Vietnam service, drug use and sexual conduct that went with it, issues that continued to play out, sometimes with Mrs. Clinton in a supporting role.
“Although his instincts were right on target, and I think, intellectually and pragmatically, he understood that America wanted to move beyond those categories, in some ways he was trapped by his biography,” Mr. Obama said. “Some of what I say, I think, is facilitated by the fact that I’m less rooted in some of those arguments.”