Clinton, Penn spin day after poll
Posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 10:59 AM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro
In
post-Iowa poll spin, the Clinton campaign rolled out Chief Strategist
Mark Penn. He dismissed the latest Washington Post/ABC poll showing
Obama ahead, saying there’s been “a lot of over-reporting” on it.
“Iowa’s always been a competitive race,” Penn
told MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski this morning. He finds it “very funny”
hearing “we slipped” because “our vote is staying exactly the same.
He’s [Obama’s] moving within the margin of error.”
He implicitly questioned the poll’s accuracy,
citing that the last one in July also showed Obama ahead. “It’s the
only poll to do so,” Penn said.
Obama was ahead of Clinton and Edwards in that
poll 27%-26%-26%. Obama was also leading in a late September Newsweek
poll 28%-24%-22%.
Penn also dismissed questions of Clinton’s honesty. This poll showed her lagging in that area as did our NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll as we noted in a post on her new ad yesterday.
“A lot of the other polls show honesty is about a wash or equal,” Penn said. He then played up where Clinton scores better: experience. He called health care, experience the “kinds of things they’re [voters] looking for from the next nominee….”
He then took a swipe at Obama’s qualifications to take on the economy. “Voters are sure done with Bush,” Penn began, reacting to Hillary Clinton saying that “It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush.”
“Democrats think Bill Clinton did a great job and think she’s ready to be president and ready to manage a tough economy,” Penn said. “Three years ago, Senator Obama was State Senator Obama. There’s a huge gap between these candidates, in a time of war” and in a struggling economy.
