Oh-eight (D): 'They call him (her) flipper'
Posted: Monday, February 25, 2008 9:09 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats
Who's a flip-flopper? The Washington Post notes that both Clinton and Obama have been flip-floppers. "A review of the two candidates' records shows that both senators have shifted positions on numerous issues as the competition for votes has become more intense. In some cases, the shifts have been subtle, a change of emphasis rather than an obvious reversal. But on other issues, both candidates are saying things that are quite different from their previous positions.”
In fact, here are each candidate’s top-five flip-flops. For Obama: special interest money (he's now happy to get labor support); public financing; Cuba; illegal immigration and decriminalization of marijuana. For Clinton: NAFTA, No Child Left Behind, Iraq, driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and the FL/MI delegate debacle.
The Boston Globe: “While political analysts said that Nader is unlikely to repeat his performance in the 2000 election, in which he won nearly 3 million votes, his presence on the ballot could still have an impact if the contest is close. In 2004, Nader won about half a million votes, including nearly 33,000 in Florida.”
CLINTON: The
Los Angeles Times looks at Clinton's shifting tactics. "With her White House prospects in jeopardy, Hillary Rodham Clinton has shifted from one tactic to another in trying to overtake rival Barack Obama. She tried TV ads saying he ducked debates. She accused him of plagiarism. She disparaged his huge crowds. She called his attacks on her shameful and dishonest. On Sunday, Clinton turned to ridicule. ‘Now I can stand up here and say: Let's just get everybody together, let's get unified, the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect,’ Clinton told supporters here at Rhode Island College.”
“‘Maybe I just lived a little long. But I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be,’ Clinton continued. ‘You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear.’”
The Washington Post writes about Clinton's more populist tone, noting that she's sounding more like John Edwards these days. "Eager to recapture the white, working-class voters who favored her in some of the early primaries but who have since shifted to Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton traded her usual wonky style this weekend for a fiery, populist tone in speeches in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. Instead of giving precise policy details, she repeatedly pointed her finger skyward, declared that Americans ‘got shafted under President Bush’ and cast herself as a fighter, as Edwards often described himself, promising to help most Americans, not just the ‘wealthy and the connected.’”
Apparently, Clinton was reassuring donors over the weekend that she was in good shape for March 4.
And in case you missed it, over the weekend, Clinton apologized for the comments her husband made that were seen by some as racially charged.
OBAMA: The New York Times does the Obama safety story. "There is a hushed worry on the minds of many supporters of Senator Barack Obama, echoing in conversations from state to state, rally to rally: Will he be safe?"
For what it's worth, we've found this to be a generational thing; Folks old enough to remember the assassinations of the '60s are the most worried; those under 50, not so much.
This is one of handful of conservative columns we've seen of late that hits Obama on his ego. It seems one of the talking points that could become louder over the next few months. Here's NYT's Kristol's shot: "So we don’t have to work to improve our souls. Our broken souls can be fixed -- by our voting for Barack Obama. We don’t have to fight or sacrifice to help our country. Our uninvolved and uninformed lives can be changed -- by our choosing Barack Obama. America can become a nation to be proud of -- by letting ourselves be led by Barack Obama."
The Los Angeles Times’ Z. Barabak looks at Obama's success at wooing Republicans. "Many are skeptical that Republicans will stick with Obama until November. They point out that many of his proposals -- including a timetable for ending the war in Iraq, repealing Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, expanding the government's role in healthcare and supporting gay rights and gun control -- cut too much against GOP orthodoxy."
At some point, Obama has to deal with this increased criticism as penned by Roll Call's Stu Rothenberg: "Maybe if Obama wraps up the Democratic nomination in the next few weeks, he’ll give all of us a better idea of what he’d really like to do as president. We can only hope so. Another eight months of soaring but empty rhetoric about bringing people together and bringing about change will leave most of America brain-dead."
Here's an endorsement Obama could have done without: Louis Farrakhan. "In his first major public address since a cancer crisis, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said Sunday that presidential candidate Barack Obama is the ‘hope of the entire world’ that the U.S. will change for the better. The 74-year-old Farrakhan, addressing an estimated crowd of 20,000 people at the annual Saviours' Day celebration, never outrightly endorsed Obama but spent most of the nearly two-hour speech praising the Illinois senator."
Said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton: "Sen. Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan's past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister's support."
