Introducing Sen Clinton at a conference of the AFL-CIO in Philadelphia, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee and long time friend of the Clintons said he knows for certain that Hillary opposed Nafta in 1992 — because she called him and told him so. “On the day they had the votes, she called me and said – and this kind of says it all — we lost, when the votes were there for Nafta,” he said. “So anyone who decides to hang it around her neck is hanging it on the wrong neck.”

Critics including Sen Obama have pointed to her autobiography, in which she called Nafta a “victory,” and to notes from contemporaneous White House schedules that claim she spoke out in favor of the trade agreement in meetings.

Taking the podium, Clinton said McEntee’s account was spot on. “I did speak out and oppose Nafta. The President made a different decision,” she said. White House insiders, she said, “know that I raised a big yellow caution flag. I said, I’m not sure this will work.”

UPDATE: In her media availability, she was asked extensively about whether she really opposed Nafta as early as 1992, and why she never spoke out publicly. “I spoke out against it inside the White House, in the ‘92 campaign, on more than one occasion. And there are many people who have attested to that because they were in those meetings,” she said.

“When you are part of an administration, you go along with what the president finally decides. Sometimes I was very much involved in speaking out on behalf of decisions and they went they way that I wanted them to go, and sometimes they didn’t. But I have certainly raised issues about Nafta over the last several years as a senator.”

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The Obama camp says they found evidence that Senator Clinton has misled voters buried within Senator Clinton’s White House schedules, which were released yesterday.

“Thousands of pages of Hillary Clinton’s White House schedules released yesterday show that she was one of the administration’s top proponents of NAFTA, attending at least four meetings to advocate for its passage,” an Obama campaign memo read.

“Now that she’s running for President, Clinton has changed her tune. Less than a month ago, Clinton said at a debate that ‘I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning. I didn’t have a public position on it, because I was part of the administration, but when I started running for the Senate, I have been a critic.’ Really?  Attendees at the 1993 NAFTA briefing where Clinton served as the closing act say that she was ‘totally pro-NAFTA and what a good thing it would be for the economy,’” the memo, sent to reporters, continued.

On a conference call with reporters, Obama senior advisor David Axelrod declared, “Senator Clinton told the people of Ohio and indignantly rebuffed suggestions that she had been a supporter of NAFTA, and what these papers show is that that simply wasn’t true. And you know, obviously she knew that she’d been involved in these meetings. I don’t think that slipped her mind and I’ll leave it to you and others how to characterize that. But I do think that it is clear that what she told the people of Ohio and the people this country about this wasn’t true and it does make you wonder if this is one of the reason why there was such a reluctance to get some of these records out there on a timely basis.”

This criticism from the Obama campaign comes after the Clinton camp urged Senator Obama to release his own records and schedules from his time in the Illinois state senate.

Read the entire Obama memo below the jump.

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Senator Barack Obama took 9 questions at a hastily arranged press availability today in San Antonio. The campaign squeezed the avail into the candidate’s schedule, despite the fact that he was running behind schedule. The last media avail took place on Thursday - nearly an eternity in campaign time (Keep in mind, Hillary Clinton has held two media availabilities since yesterday).

The 15 1/2 minute press avail began with a question about Austan Goolsbee, the Obama economic advisor who reportedly told someone in the Canadian government that Obama’s anti-NAFTA campaign rhetoric is just political speak. Campaign Manager David Plouffe told reporters earlier in the day that Goolsbee attended the meeting not as a representative of the campaign, but as a visiting professor from the University of Chicago. In interviews, Obama had previously denied that “it happened,” and so he was asked by a reporter today to clarify what happened.The second topic du jour was about Obama’s relationship with Tony Rezko, an Obama contributor whose federal corruption trial began today in Chicago. A fair number of Chicago reporters headed south to San Antonio to question Obama on fundraisers held by Rezko, who was in attendance, and on Obama’s transparency on the issue.

Watch Obama field questions on these topics below:

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After Communications Director Robert Gibbs called “last question,” the room of reporters brimming with questions yelled out in unison. Obama, who was walking out of the room turned and grinned. “Wait, wait guys - come on now! I just answered like 8 questions,” he said. He stood and looked out at the group of reporters and said, “We’re running late,” as he departed the noisy room.

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The battle to see which Democratic presidential contender opposes NAFTA more escalated today with a memo obtained by the AP detailing a meeting between a top adviser to Barack Obama and a Canadian diplomat in Chicago in which the adviser is said to have called his candidate’s anti-NAFTA stance “political positioning.”

The memo’s author writes that Obama’s economic adviser Austan Goolsbee “candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged” in the campaign thus far, adding that “he cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.”

In a press conference with reporters in Toledo, OH this morning, Clinton said “I don’t think people should come to Ohio and tell the people of Ohio one thing and then have your campaign tell a foreign government something else behind closed doors.”

“That’s the kind of difference between talk and action that I’ve been pointing out this entire campaign,” she said. “If you come to Ohio and you both give speeches that are very critical of NAFTA and you send out misleading and false information about my position regarding NAFTA, and then we find out that your chief economic adviser has gone to a foreign government and basically done the old wink-wink, don’t pay any attention this is just political rhetoric, I think that raises serious questions.”

Obama spokesman Bill Burton accused Clinton of a “blatant distortion,” saying she’s “not telling the truth on this story” — but did not attack the veracity of the memo, instead ripping Clinton for calling NAFTA a victory in her autobiography.

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We’re about 12 hours into the caravan tour across Ohio that will see Hillary Clinton or one of her surrogates visit all 88 counties in Ohio between now and March 4th. Senator Clinton herself started in the heart of the state near it’s capital, Columbus, then traveled North and East to Youngstown and Akron — and we’re currently following behind her (much nicer) bus on the road to a Democratic dinner in Cleveland. Tomorrow, it’s west to Toledo before flying to that other crucial state, Texas.

While she nailed Obama for two solid days on National Security in Texas, she’s focusing her message more on the economy in Ohio — where the concerns on voters minds are jobs, jobs, and jobs. Clinton backers were worried that her association with the Clinton administration and its passage of NAFTA — which many in Ohio believe has cost the state hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs — had the potential to really hurt her in this blue collar state.

So far, aides say, their fears have been unfounded. One Clinton staffer says “Senator Obama had an opportunity to gain an edge on this issue, and he failed to do so.” Their theory: Senator Clinton put out a specific plan detailing how she’d fix the free trade agreement, while Obama has merely said he agrees with her.

Much like her big Iowa tours, Clinton’s traveling on a customized bus with supporters like the mayor of Akron and the First Lady of Ohio — and much like the last push in the Hawkeye State, a 99 county blitz, she’s not taking any questions from the crowd at her events. She’s likely hoping that the result won’t be the same, though Ohio voters seem to be responding much more positively than their counterparts in Iowa.

Check out her “Solutions for America” bus below.

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It has been reported in the Canadian press that a senior economic advisor to the Obama campaign spoke with a Canadian government official to assure them that this was just campaign rhetoric. The Obama campaign has dismissed these reports as false over the course of the past two days, but the advisor in question has not yet issued a flat denial.

Today the Clinton campaign alerted reporters to a letter sent to Senator Barack Obama from two Ohio unions about the sincerity of the candidate’s campaign promise to renegotiate NAFTA as president. The letter from two union officials sent to Mr. Obama expresses surprise and disappointment that the advisor reportedly met in secret with the Canadian government.

“After a series of misdirections and half-truths, it’s time for you to come clean about your campaign’s communications with the Canadian government about NAFTA. Enough with the non-denial denials and the Washington double-speak,” the letter states.

The letter then asks Senator Obama five questions on the alleged incident and about his true intentions with NAFTA.

Later in the day, the pro-Obama union UNITE HERE fired off its own letter to Senator Clinton on the consistency of her position on the trade agreement. Obama spokesman Bill Burton forwarded the letter via email to reporters covering the Obama campaign.

“We were disappointed to see that you and your supporters continue to make desperate attacks against Senator Obama based on a story from a Canadian TV station that was debunked and retracted as fast as it was reported. Just as you know that this story is false and yet repeat it anyway, you also know that Senator Obama has consistently called for amending the flawed NAFTA agreement passed by the Clinton Administration – which you have called one of the most significant legislative accomplishments of the Clinton years.”

The UNITE HERE authors then ask Clinton two questions of their own, but are probably not expecting a response when they conclude, “We certainly wish it were true that you had been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning – because if you had offered a single public criticism when it was being debated, or urged President Clinton to back away from it, you could have stopped NAFTA from happening to America. Sadly, the record of your long, strong and vocal support of this flawed agreement is painfully clear.”

Read both letters in full below the jump:

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Round Rock, TX – Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are sending “the wrong message to the world” by stating that they will renegotiate NAFTA with Canada, Sen. John McCain said Friday–adding that their trade stances could also lead America’s neighbor to the north to reconsider it’s role in the war on terror.

“I believe there is very little doubt if we say we are going to…change the terms of a treaty that was negotiated for years, signed into law by President Clinton, then I think that could have an adverse affect on the situation as regards to their commitment to Afghanistan,” McCain told a town hall meeting at Dell Computers today.

“I believe that those agreements should be kept…and every time in history that we have practiced protectionism we have paid a very heavy price for it,” McCain added.

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have ratcheted up their anti-NAFTA rhetoric recently as they compete for votes in next week’s Ohio primary, a state that has been heavily hit by economic losses related to manufacturing jobs moving across the border. Both Democrats said at a debate Tuesday night that they would be willing to use the threat of a NAFTA pullout to demand the Canadians renegotiate the terms of an agreement.

“One of the greatest assets we have in Afghanistan today frankly are our Canadian friends…it can in no way help our relations with Canada in any way if we tell them we are unilaterally going to renegotiate a treaty without their agreement. It’s just a fact,” McCain said, noting that maintaining troops in Afghanistan is a divisive issue for Canadians.

McCain’s criticism on free trade comes after he hammered for Obama for the last two days on the war on terror.

Sen Clinton’s anger over an Obama mailer on NAFTA has resulted in a fiery mail of her own. Clinton’s Ohio flyer highlights what she calls her “consistent record of protecting American workers” on the front — and attacks Obama’s record on the back, citing an AP report from 2004 that Obama had said the US should pursue more deals like NAFTA.

“False Attack Alert: Don’t Be Fooled by Barack Obama,” it reads. “Americans Can’t Afford Barack Obama.”  (You can check it out it here: 08-02-25-nafta-mailer.pdf)

She’s also reaching out to Ohio voters with a new robocall on the trade issue — a critical one in a state that has lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs this decade.

“This is Hillary Clinton calling to set the record straight,” she says in the recording. “Senator Obama has sent out attack mailers that distort my record on NAFTA, but I believe Ohio deserves the truth.

“NAFTA has hurt Ohio families and I have a plan to fix it.  My opponent does not. I’ll appoint a Trade Prosecutor to enforce our trade agreements, and crackdown on China’s unfair trade practices. I’ll eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and invest in creating good jobs right here in Ohio.

Ohio needs solutions, not distortions.  With your support on March 4th, we can jumpstart the economy and get Ohio back to work.”

A visibly angry Hillary Clinton railed against two mailers from the Obama campaign attacking her on health care and NAFTA — waving copies in the air and calling them “false, misleading, [and] discredited,” while accusing Obama of “Karl Rove tactics.”

“This is the kind of attack that not only undermines core Democratic values, but gives aid and comfort to the very special interests and their allies in the Republican party,” she said.

Clinton said she was handed the mails by a supporter after an event in Cincinnati. The two flyers, which were originally sent out in some February 5th states but have resurfaced in Ohio, accuse Sen Clinton of forcing families to buy health insurance even if they can’t afford it, and calling NAFTA a “boon.” The trade agreement is a big issue in the rust belt state, which has seen thousands of manufacturing jobs sent overseas.

Sen Clinton denied the substance of both attacks, and threw some vicious counter punches. Obama, she said, “says one thing in speeches and then he turns around and does this. We have consistently called him on it. It has been discredited. It is blatantly false. And yet he continues to spend millions of dollars perpetuating falsehoods.”

“That is not the new politics that the speeches are about,” she said. “It is not hopeful, it is destructive.”

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