Interview with Obama: Still Confident

Barack Obama flew home to Chicago on Wednesday morning after the Ohio and Texas contests. Along the way, he spoke with TIME’s Jay Newton-Small about his next steps and the increasingly gritty race for the Democratic nomination. Here are excerpts:

TIME: Are you going to take on Senator Clinton on foreign policy?

She has been able to assert throughout this campaign that she has 35 years of experience, that makes her more qualified. If somehow she can discount my 20 years of experience working as a civil rights attorney or as a community organizer or as a state senator or as a United States Senator and suggest that that career can be summed up in one speech, then I’m going to be interested in finding out what exactly she thinks makes her particularly well-prepared, for example, on foreign policy.

So let’s ask a very simple question. Has she negotiated any treaties? When she traveled to these 80 countries, was she involved in policymaking? If so, what? My suspicion is that you’re not going to get a bunch of particularly impressive answers.

Are you saying you’re more qualified than she is?

What I’m saying is that she has been able to assert experience that isn’t backed up by a whole host of facts.

Clinton threw the kitchen sink at you. What hurt the most?

You know, the truth is … we were down 20 in all these states, and so we were working on closing the gap, but it’s not clear to me that even if things were perfect that we could’ve entirely closed that gap–partly because she’s a very vigorous campaigner and they had the resources to be able to get out there and hold that lead. And part of it was, there’s a natural cycle on the coverage of these campaigns. I actually think that what probably had the most impact this past week was the press buying into this notion that they have been too tough on her or too soft on me. I actually think that had the biggest impact. She complained to the referees, and the referees gave her some calls.

Let’s talk about Tony Rezko for a minute. What was the nature of your discussions with Rezko prior to purchasing your home?

As I said before, he was a real estate developer in the area. This was the biggest purchase Michelle and I had ever made. It was a very expensive house relative to our previous condominium. And so I asked him to take a look at the house and to give me his opinion in terms of whether he thought it was worth it. I was essentially seeking a professional opinion from him in terms of whether it was a good buy.

Did you generally or expressly state a need for help in buying both or either of the tracts?

No. I didn’t need help.

In going ahead, do you think a continued fight is going to be bruising to the party? Especially if it’s going to get as nasty as you say?

I didn’t say it was going to get nasty. I want to be very clear on this. I have no intention of getting nasty. I just want to make sure that we’re not operating on a double standard that somehow she gets a pass on experience, she gets a pass on ethics, she can sort of assert whatever record she wants. If she continues, as over the last week, to bring up real estate transactions and the character of our supporters who have provided donations to our campaign, then we will make certain that she has to answer those same questions with respect to herself, her husband and her campaign.

Can she still win?

I feel confident that we will.