Clinton camp urges Obama to be positive
Posted: Thursday, March 06, 2008 12:55 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
In what may be a sign of an increasingly negative campaign, the Clinton camp held a conference call Thursday to criticize Obama for attacking the New York senator -- using what they called "Republican talking points" and to challenge him to address the issues they've raised about his readiness to handle national security and economic issues.
Communications Director Howard Wolfson accused Obama of "imitating Ken Starr" in his attacks on Hillary, and senior adviser Ann Lewis began the call with a statement that raised questions about Obama's claim he would offer a new kind of politics.
"One day after losing elections in Ohio and Texas, where the debate centered on issues of the economy and national security, the Obama campaign has apparently decided that instead of addressing these issues, they're going to focus on attacking Hillary Clinton. I did not realize that their version of new politics is to recycle some of the same old Republican attacks on Hillary that have failed for years. This new strategy, I've gotta say, suggests a campaign that is unable to make the positive case," she said.
Lewis asked why Obama would not address his failure to hold hearings as chair of a Senate subcommittee on European affairs and to offer solutions on the economy, both issues the Obama campaign has addressed through statements and policy papers.
She said Clinton's rival had been using negative mailers against Hillary on health care and NAFTA for weeks and called his criticisms on trade agreement misleading and "particularly ironic given what we now know" about his economic adviser meeting with Canadian representatives.
In response to this conference call, Obama spokesman Bill Burton replied with this statement: “It is absurd that after weeks of badgering the media to ‘vet’ Senator Obama, the Clinton campaign believes that they should be held to an entirely different standard. We don’t believe that expecting candidates for the presidency to disclose their tax returns somehow constitutes Ken Starr-tactics... And if Senator Clinton doesn’t think that the Republicans will ask these very same questions, then she’s not as ready to go toe-to-toe with John McCain as she claims.”
On the call, the Clinton campaign also announced having raised $3 million online in the 24 hours following Tuesday's wins, and Wolfson took a stab at predicting which states the New York senator would perform well in in the upcoming contests.
"I think Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico are all states where we believe we have a chance to do well in. And then, I think, we've all heard and read about the increasing possibility that there may be some additional activity in Florida and Michigan. And, of course, given the results of the primaries that occurred there, we would feel good about our prospects in those states," he said.
When pressed for more comment on Florida and Michigan, Wolfson restated the campaign's position that voters in those states had spoken and their delegations should be seated and said they were following the conversations about re-doing votes in those states "with interest." He would not comment on the possibility that Michigan could hold a caucus.
The aides were challenged about the fairness of their raising questions about Obama and arguing that he was recycling Republican talking points and Lewis responded that Obama had focused on personal attacks.
