HELENA – The Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign is airing its first Montana television advertisement with less than a week before the state’s Tuesday primary.
The Barack Obama campaign has been airing different advertisements in the state for a month.
The new Clinton ad touts her vote against the Bush administration energy plan and her universal health care plan.
“I intend to be a president who stands up for all of you,” Clinton says in the advertisement.
The race in Montana continues to heat up, even though most observers say Obama appears to just about have the nomination wrapped up.
Chelsea Clinton is campaigning for her mother in Montana this week, and former President Bill Clinton makes a fifth campaign trip to the state on Sunday.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign said the former president will speak at Stevensville High School at 9:15 a.m. Sunday, at the Deer Lodge County Courthouse in Anaconda at 1 p.m., at Paris Gibson School in Great Falls at 3:45 p.m. and at Capital High School in Helena at 6:45 p.m.
Obama is scheduled to speak at Four Seasons Arena in Great Falls at 5:45 p.m. Friday, his third campaign trip to Montana.
On Thursday, campaign supporter and former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota unveiled Obama’s plan for rural Montana. It featured an endorsement of country-of-origin food labeling and a call for permanent disaster assistance for farmers.
Montana’s primary is June 3, the last in the nation along with South Dakota’s.
At stake in Montana are 16 pledged delegates and eight superdelegates, three of whom are committed to Obama while a fourth was forced to retract her Obama endorsement due to party rules. The pledged delegates will be awarded to each candidate based on the proportion of the vote they receive.