Sen. Barack Obama faced a barrage of criticism on the campaign trail and in mailboxes yesterday, with his rivals criticizing his support of nuclear power and accusing him of taking an ambiguous position on abortion rights. Members of one advocacy group supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton called on its leader to stop a negative ad campaign against Obama.

Meanwhile, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney continued his sharp attacks on Sen. John McCain, accusing the Arizona senator of attacking fellow Republicans, voting against tax cuts and supporting amnesty for illegal aliens.

Here is a rundown of the day's negative campaigning:

• A Clinton campaign flyer criticizing Obama's stance on abortion rights landed in New Hampshire mailboxes yesterday, accusing the Illinois senator of being "unwilling to take a stand on choice." On one side the flyer says, "a woman's right to choose . . .," with the backside displaying side-by-side comparisons of Clinton's and Obama's efforts to support abortion rights.

The mailer says Obama had seven opportunities in the Illinois state Senate to "stand up against Republican anti-choice legislation," but seven times he voted "present," instead of "yes" or "no."

"Being there is not enough to protect choice," the flyer says. In bold letters at the bottom it reads, "On January 8 you have a choice."

Obama campaign spokesman Reid Cherlin said the claim was false and already backfired once when Clinton tried to make it in Iowa. The campaign also provided a prepared statement from Lorna Barrett, the president of the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women. Brett called the mailer a "red herring."

"Barack Obama is and always has been there for the choice community. I know - I was there with him in the trenches," she said.

"This is offensive. I am pro-choice, pro-truth, pro-Hillary - in that order. And questioning the latter. I am very disgusted by this tactic being used by the Clinton campaign."

A story in the New York Times last month described Obama's "present" votes and quoted a spokeswoman for Illinois Planned Parenthood saying that the votes were actually part of a strategy to stymie anti-abortion legislation.

• Clinton also leveled some of her most pointed criticism of Obama on the campaign trail yesterday. At a stop yesterday morning at Merrimack Valley High School in Penacook, she told voters it was a mistake to support a health care plan that would not mandate health insurance for everybody.

"It's a mistake politically because it cedes to the Republicans the argument that we can't do this," she said. "I just totally reject that. Not only can we do it, we must do it. And it's wrong of us not to start out by trying to insure every single American. Because otherwise, we're going to start by leaving millions of people out."

• The American Federation of State, Municipal and County Employees, which has endorsed Clinton, has also blasted Obama's health care plan with several campaign mailers and radio ads in New Hampshire. Yesterday, Time's Mark Halperin posted on his blog a scathing letter written by AFSCME's executive board asking the union's president to stop the negative attacks against Obama.

Calling Obama "one of the great friends of our union," seven members of the group's International Executive Board said there was widespread agreement among board members to refrain from negative assaults against Clinton's rivals when the board voted to endorse her. The board members said they were "shocked and appalled" by the AFSCME campaign against Obama, which they said has been orchestrated by only two of the group's staffers with no input from its president, Gerald McEntee.

"It is also worth noting that the campaign that AFSCME is waging against Sen. Obama is fundamentally dishonest and inconsistent with past positions of our union, i.e. attacking him for not forcing individuals to purchase health care even if they can't afford it," the letter said. "The ads are a misleading in attempting to give the impression that they are associated with John Edwards rather than Hillary Clinton and in their claims that Sen. Obama's health care plan will exclude 15 million people when in fact every person will have the opportunity to participate."

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