The final round? Gloves come off on Democratic campaign trail
With a strong victory in the Mississippi primary last night for Senator Barack Obama and the delegate count looking increasingly grim for Senator Hillary Clinton, the race for the Democratic nomination is getting nasty. Earlier this week, former Congresswoman and Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro sparked a firestorm of controversy for saying that Obama was “lucky” to be black.
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she said. Ferraro, who serves as co-chair of the Clinton campaign’s finance committee, later said she was sorry her remarks were interpreted as racist, but added that she thinks “they’re attacking me because I’m white.”
Clinton has been heavily criticized for refusing to remove Ferraro from her leadership position in the campaign.
Tonight, Keith Olbermann - host of “Countdown” on MSNBC - has announced he will devote the popular “special comments” section of his show to admonishing Senator Clinton for failing to reject what he terms “clearly racist” statements by campaign supporters. The “special comments” section - launched by Olbermann in August of 2006, has hitherto criticized only Republicans - specifically, President Bush.
Senator Clinton is hitting back, however. Today, her campaign issued a release calling on her rival to answer several questions, including one that asks why Obama did not remove General McPeak - a key campaign surrogate - for his statement that Obama was more qualified to be commander in chief because he “doesn’t go on television and have crying fits.”
Such altercations underscore a central theme in an historic, non-traditional nomination battle: with an African-American facing off against a female candidate, the Obama campaign and its supporters have frequently cried foul over Clinton’s supposed playing of the race card, while Clinton supporters have sought to portray Obama’s tactics as sexist.
The candidates will next face off in Pennsylvania on April 22nd, a state that, according to recent polling, appears likely to favor Clinton. However, she and her campaign will likely have to pull out all the stops from here on out in order to clinch the nomination: with 2,025 delegates needed to win, Obama leads Clinton 1,529 to 1,417, according to the most recent calculations by the New York Times.*
*Delegate estimations include speculation regarding superdelegates and thus may vary slightly by media organization.
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Over the last few weeks, Sen. Obama has successfully undermined his credibility with a series of statements to reporters and voters that have been contradicted by the facts. Unfortunately, he’s doing it again today by having his campaign issue a fundamentally misleading attack aimed at glossing over the doubts Americans have about his readiness to be Commander-in-Chief. Once again, Senator Obama is proving the point that his campaign is about “just words.”
Despite making hard end-dates a centerpiece of his campaign, Senator Obama’s top foreign policy adviser said those plans are not anything he’ll rely on as president. Despite repeated denials and five different parsed statements by his campaign that have been called misleading by media reports, his top economic adviser did in fact dismiss Senator Obama’s NAFTA criticism to the Canadian government as just political rhetoric.
And now today, Senator Obama is at it again, sending a false attack memo from his campaign making claims that are contradicted by the facts. Still reeling from its losses in Ohio and Texas, the Obama campaign has come out swinging, taking aim at Senator Clinton’s considerable foreign policy experience with false claims and baseless attacks. After last week’s defeats, the Obama campaign faced a choice: try to convince voters that Senator Obama is ready to take the 3am phone call in a positive way or try to tear down Senator Clinton’s accomplishments.
Considering that his foreign policy advisor, Susan Rice, cited Senator Obama’s “legislation on ethics reform” when asked this morning about his foreign policy experience, it is clear that the Obama campaign is unable to make a positive case for its candidate’s experience. They have chosen to attack and today’s memo continues the pattern of statements contradicted by the facts. Given the credibility gap his campaign has developed over the last few weeks, these latest attacks today should not be believed.
There is a reason that thirty former Generals and Admirals have endorsed Senator Clinton — they know she is prepared to lead this nation as Commander in Chief with strength and experience on day one. Here are the facts about Hillary’s experience.
I had really hoped Clinton would be out of the race by now. I don’t support any particular candidate (at least not yet), but out of them all, she is the one I trust the least.