"I think they have decided to run a relentlessly negative campaign and I don't think anybody who's watching would deny that. I gather that she's determined that instead of trying to sell herself on why she would be the best president, she's trying to convince folks that I wouldn't be a good one."

I think that this pretty much nails it the head. Sen. Barack Obama's own words:

Pool report on Obama's visit to Pentecostal Temple Church of God in Christ in Las Vegas early this afternoon from Michael Martinez of Chicago Tribune:

In a brief Q & A before Obama entered the church:

Question: Respond to Clinton's charge that he is distorting her statement on Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King:

"I am baffled by that statement by the senator. She made an ill advised statement about Dr. King suggesting that Lyndon Johnson had more to do with the Civil Right Acts. I did not make the statement. I haven't commented on the statement. For them to suggest that we're injecting race as a consequence of a statement she made that we haven't commented on is pretty hard to figure out. Maybe you can tell me and explain to me how we distorted her statement."

Question: Clinton campaign saying in a conference call earlier today that there is no difference in their record on war in Iraq because both voted for war funding:

"Sen. Clinton started off trying to make history and now she's trying to rewrite it. She's trying to rewrite it about my record and hers."

"In 2002, I made a clear and unequivocal statement before 3,000 people that this war was a bad idea." He said he was against the war in 2003 and 2004 also.

"Now she chose to vote for the war and she can decide whether it's a mistake or not. Apparently she has not said anything about it. For her to suggest somehow that half of a sentence that I uttered in 2004 in a setting in which I was trying not to throw the Democratic nominee and vice presidential nominee under the bus, after Tim Russert specifically asked me since you were so opposed to the war, what do you think about the fact that they weren't, to take that out of context and try to suggest my position and hers is the same is ludicrous. There is not objective observer of this who thinks at all that this argument is credible. And what's stunning is not only are they trying to distort my record, this is coming from Bill Clinton who is trying to suggest that he opposed the war from the start, something that everybody again who has looked at this objectively is puzzled by."

Q: then why did he vote for war funding

A: "Once we had our troops two years into a war, it was important that we try to do the best possible job on it. So is Sen. Clinton's argument is that the only people who were principled about this were people who voted against funding all the time, if that's the case, she should talk to Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer (war critics who also voted for the funding). Apparently they weren't against the war the entire time."

Q: Dick Durbin equating the Clinton attacks to swiftboating you. Is Clinton swiftboating you?

"I think they have decided to run a relentlessly negative campaign and I don't think anybody who's watching would deny that. I gather that she's determined that instead of tyring to sell herself on why she would be the best president, she's trying to convince folks that I wouldn't be a good one." "I don't think that's what the American people are looking for."

Obama was greeted by about 420 congregants and a 50-member choir at the Pentecostal Temple, a Church of God in Christ church, an African-American church in a Las Vegas neighborhood populated by black and Latino families, who largely live in poverty, according to residents.
http://thepage.time.com/full-comments-fr om-obamas-vegas-media-availability/