Clinton, Obama Camps Brainstorm to Get Upper Hand
Saturday: Hillary Clinton campaigned in Pittsburgh, Pa., over the weekend, getting in face time at a St. Patrick's Day parade. (AP Photo)
CHICAGO — Strategists for the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton exchanged calculated barbs Sunday over accountability and ethics and who is engaging in personal attacks.
Obama communications director Robert Gibbs called on Clinton to release full post-White House tax returns; disclose all congressional “earmarks,” or pet projects she had inserted into spending bills; and release all documents on the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Library, including a list of donors.
“What is lurking in those documents?” Gibbs asked as the two campaigns had dueling phone conference calls with reporters. “There are gaps that need to be filled,” said senior Obama strategist David Axelrod.
“This is a tried and true technique of the Obama campaign that has repeatedly shifted negative when they find the momentum working against them,” said senior Clinton strategist Mark Penn. He suggested the Obama campaign was trying to “deflect public opinion from their losses in Ohio and Texas” and faced with Clinton strength in Pennsylvania.
Obama was heading for Pennsylvania on Monday to campaign, with stops later in the week likely in North Carolina and Oregon. Clinton prepared to give a speech on the Iraq war on Monday in Washington.
The Obama campaign’s move on Clinton came after a weekend in which the Illinois Democrat sought to ease public concerns about his ties to an indicted Chicago developer and to inflammatory statements by his former pastor.
In interviews with Chicago newspapers, a TV appearance and a Saturday speech in Indiana, Obama disavowed racially tinged comments by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who was Obama’s pastor for nearly 20 years before retiring recently.
Obama also worked to distance himself from Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a former fundraiser for the candidate who is currently on trial in Chicago on corruption charges.
Obama’s team asserted that Clinton was continuing to shield financial documents from public scrutiny at the same time she was calling for greater accountability.
Clinton has said she will release tax returns for the years after her the end of her husband’s presidency before the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania.
When asked if the request for tax information is what they are calling personal attacks, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said: “When you accuse somebody of being disingenuous and question their integrity and their honesty, as they are doing, that constitutes a personal attack.”
As to Pennsylvania, Obama strategist Axelrod rejected a suggestion that their campaign was all but giving up on the state and focusing its energies on primaries that come later where they expect to do better.
“‘We are going to contest vigorously in Pennsylvania,” Axelrod said, noting that Obama would be there on Monday and Tuesday.
Still, said Axelrod, “she (Clinton) does have a lot of advantages there — and we understand that. We know we have an uphill fight there. … But in no way are we giving up on Pennsylvania.”
Wow.
Words …. Words …. Words …. More Words. He has all the problems covered, he has all the solutions …. And he has nothing.
The man is well read; one must grant him that. But, in modesty, so am I; I am however not in Politics, and he is running for President [so he says]; my view after his speech: he is running for much more than that. This man is dangerous, very dangerous, big, big trouble.
Orator/Prophet/Messiah … you name it.
All I hope now is that those in power, those who will have to clear up the mess Senator Obama obviously intends to create in order to be the Chosen One the one and only Messiah ever, you better act now.
Somebody previously in these columns said America will have to either take the pain and run this inciter out of public office now, or elect him in November, crown him in January, and impeach him in March. I couldn’t agree more
What worries me meantime is Denver, really worries me, and …. the inevitable mess afterwards.
Holy Jeremiah! Have you seen this? This Obama feller playing the race card, pretending to be the Peacemaker.
Ah tell you folks, ah’m a Redneck, thinking before McCain came in I would rather vote Obama to keep that Clinton woman out.
But way I hear this fellow talking in Philly Sunday, he’s fixin’ on starting a race war, he’ll darn well have Denver in flames ‘cause either way he wins. Them stupid Dem’s have trouble, ah tell ya. His supporters are being primed to scream race if it looks like Hillary is winning. Meantime he sits back testing the waters, and when the whole damn place burns, he offers himself as the Peacemaker. Best part: nobody knows he started the riot.
Did you folks know, turned out most o’them terrorists planned and blew up ‘hem trains an’ buildings in England year, two years maybe now, they were trained and qualified medical doctors. Tellin’ ya …. Who would think a doctor do a thing like that, hey. Makes ya think?
Darn clever, that fellow …. darn clever …. don’t matter which way it goes, he wins.
But ah thinks someone should tell him to keep his slimy little fingus outa’ the race thing. We have plenty other problems. Ya, someone ought to tell him before this Country burns.
After this weekend i think we should look at Obama a lot more.Sounds to me this man hates white people.One can not go to church for twenty years an not realize the hate that this man has been spewing.Opra sure realized it when she was a member.
**NOW IT EXPLAINS WHY Barack Hussein Obama has refused to wear an America Flag pin on his lapel, now explains why he doesn’t show respect for the America Anthem, now it explains why Michelle said: For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country statement. Apparently these 2 have never been proud before until now that Barack Obama is running for president. To tell WHITE PEOPLE what to do, right?
They both have actually acted just like their spiritual pastor Jeremiah Wright have preached , TO HATE AMERICA, TO DAMN AMERICA!
Obama should just back out now quietly, AMERICA HAS SEEN THEIR TRUE COLORS ABOUT HIM, HIS WIFE AND HIS SPIRITUAL PASTOR FOR 20 YRS, JEREMIAH WRIGHT!
*** Pennsylvania be ALERT!
NOW IT EXPLAINS WHY Barack Hussein Obama has refused to wear an America Flag pin on his lapel, now explains why he doesn’t show respect for the America Anthem, now it explains why Michelle said: For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country statement. Apparently these 2 have never been proud before until now that Barack Obama is running for president. To tell WHITE PEOPLE what to do, right?
They both have actually acted just like their spiritual pastor Jeremiah Wright have preached , TO HATE AMERICA, TO DAMN AMERICA!
Obama should just back out now quietly, AMERICA HAS SEEN THEIR TRUE COLORS ABOUT HIM, HIS WIFE AND HIS SPIRITUAL PASTOR FOR 20 YRS, JEREMIAH WRIGHT!
PENNSYLVANIA VOTERS BETTER BE VERY CAREFULL ABOUT THIS GUY, HE IS NOT BELIEVABLE!
If you want a picture of an Obama administration:
Every word of opposition is defined as a racial divide
Taxes (unless illegal dealings may be involved-should be a private matter) However, we would like to see Obama taxes and campaign records more than I Clintons. Obama has a record of distancing himself from relationships that no longer serve him such as Tony Rezko, Chicago real-state mogul on trial for a long list of fraud and corruption offences; Nadhmi Auchi, a British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama’s fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The London Times discloses the Britain/Iraq businessman helped Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago; and Joseph Aramanda a Syrian-born millionaire’s whose extensive fundraising operations, central to the prosecution’s case against Rezko is a $375,000 payoff - called a “finder’s fee” - that is alleged to have been skimmed illegally from investment fees paid by the Illinois state teachers’ pension fund in which monies landed in Obama’s campaign fund.
Obama has not shown his taxes since 2006, maybe he first must get them from the FBI.
As for Hillary, her taxes are a little more complicated then Obama’s. Being married to an ex-president, they must be cleared first through the Government and for National Secruity reasons, its not as simple as going to Kinko’s or printing them out on their home computer.
Ferraro might have made a mistake, but she had to choose:
1) offending the press and african americans
2) offending Oprah
How so?
If she stated that Oprah gave Obama his big push, and that being the case because Oprah was pushing race…Oprah would have damned her like Jeremiah Wright damned America.
Ferraro took the bullet with the lowest caliber.