More oh-eight (D): Rhetoric heats up
Posted: Thursday, January 10, 2008 9:15 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Democrats
It looks like the rhetoric between the campaigns is going to start heating up. Check out this charge from Jesse Jackson Jr. "Citing a key moment at the end of the New Hampshire campaign, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) said Clinton had choked up when someone asked about her hair, ‘not in response to other issues. . . . Her appearance brought her to tears, but not Hurricane Katrina.’ An Obama advisor said Jackson, Obama's national campaign co-chairman, was speaking only for himself. Obama, campaigning in New Jersey, renewed his call for an end to partisanship, saying, ‘We can't keep doing things the same way.’”
A spokesman for New York Sen. Clinton, Howard Wolfson, called Jackson's comment ‘puzzling.’ After the 2005 hurricane, he said, "Sen. Clinton went to the gulf . . . and comforted victims of the storm. She worked hard in the Senate with local officials from the region to get assistance to those in need.’”
Both Clinton and Obama did an update on finances yesterday and it appears -- at least early on -- that Obama has a slight edge. "With the need for new fund-raising intensifying as the campaign widens across the country, Obama's campaign trumpeted having raised $8 million in the first eight days of the year. Within hours, the Clinton campaign announced that it had raised $3 million so far this year and had pledges for $5 million more.
"Clinton raised slightly more money for the primaries than Obama in the last three months of 2007, $24 million to $22.5 million, and her campaign said it had more than $25 million in the bank at the end of the year. The Obama campaign did not disclose a cash-on-hand total."
CLINTON: Gail Collins on the new Hillary: "Clinton actually seems most genuine when she’s being dull. She’s gone back to talking about policy with voters. That’s just the way she saved her first Senate campaign by disappearing into the depths of upstate New York for an endless listening tour that drove reporters mad with tedium but seemed to make the citizens very happy."
More: "My own favorite theory is that this week, Hillary was a stand-in for every woman who’s overdosed on multitasking. They grabbed at the opportunity to have kids/go back to school/start a business/become a lawyer. But there are days when they can’t meet everybody’s needs and the men in their lives — loved ones and otherwise — make them feel like failures or towers of self-involvement. And the deal is that they can either suck it up or look like a baby."
EDWARDS: Per the Columbia State, Edwards has become a "third wheel" in the Democratic race. And he became the first Democrat after New Hampshire to campaign in South Carolina. Edwards was born in SC and won the primary there in 2004. "'I'm in it for the long haul,' Edwards declared, sorely in need of a victory to remain viable in the presidential nomination process. 'Less than 1 percent of the voters have spoken. Now it's time for the people of South Carolina to be heard, loudly and clearly.'"
RICHARDSON: The AP covers the news that Richardson is expected to withdraw from the Dem race. He "was not able to build the momentum and came in a distant fourth place in Iowa and New Hampshire. Richardson didn't get quite 5 percent in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday and came in with just 2 percent in the Iowa caucus last week."
OBAMA: Obama held a "megabucks fund-raiser where he fielded a supporter's joke mocking his rival's choked-up moment in New Hampshire," the New York Post writes. "The supporter's jab at Clinton came at a $700,000 campaign fete at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Midtown, where actor Richard Gere, director Spike Lee and model Iman were all on hand."
As Obama spoke, one supporter yelled out, "Don't cry!" which prompted laughs from the audience. "Obama, who has declined to ding Clinton over her emotion-choked 'moment' before the Granite State vote, tread lightly, saying, 'I have no comment on that.'"
