CAMPAIGN NEWS BRIEFING

CAMPAIGN NEWS BRIEFINGS - Feb.25, 2008

HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT NEWS BRIEFINGS - FEB. 25, 2008
Clinton Ramps Up Criticism Of Obama In Rhode Island. NBC Nightly News (2/24, lead story, 3:35, Allen, 9.87M) reported, “Hillary Clinton campaigned in Rhode Island today. A small state that votes in the shadow of Texas and Ohio on March 4th. Clinton began her day facing more speculation her campaign is on its last legs while she went after Barack Obama with sarcasm.” Sen. Hillary Clinton: “Now, I could 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.” Allen: “Today Hillary Clinton cast Barack Obama as naive about how difficult it is to get things done in Washington, a different tone from yesterday's outrage.”

Clinton Reassures Donors On Campaign’s Prospects. The AP (2/25, Fouhy) reports that in an attempt to “reassure anxious donors, Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday outlined a road map she said she will follow to beat Barack Obama in the Ohio and Texas primaries March 4.” Clinton “insisted that her campaign is on track and moving forward, despite losing 11 contests to Obama since Feb. 5.” Clinton said, “I am very optimistic and extremely positive about what we're doing as we go forward in these states [Ohio and Texas.]”

Clinton Calls Chafee’s Criticism Of Iraq War Vote “Revisionist History.” The Providence (RI) Journal (2/25, Arsenault) reports that in a Journal interview, Clinton responded to criticisms in former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee’s forthcoming book that Clinton’s vote to authorize force in Iraq “should be a career-ending lapse in judgment.” “‘I’m not going to contradict his personal opinion,’ Clinton said. ‘That’s certainly his to hold. But I think there’s a lot of revisionist history going on here. At the time, it was very clear that we were hoping to rein in Saddam Hussein and determine what, if any, remaining weapons of mass destruction he had. Because the facts are, he had them when we went in after the first Gulf war.’ Clinton said she supported the threat of force to compel Saddam to accept inspections, and blames President Bush for abusing the authority extended by the resolution. ‘It was a sincere vote by me at the time, and if I had known what he would do with the vote, I would not have voted for it.’”

Granholm Defends Clinton’s Reaction To Obama Mailers. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation” (2/24, 10:30 a.m.), where they were asked to address Sen. Hillary Clinton’s reaction to the release of flyers by the Obama campaign which Clinton claimed misrepresented her positions on trade agreements and health care. Granholm, who is backing Clinton, defended Clinton’s outrage, saying “I think she rightly feels so strongly about these two issues that those fliers touched on—health care and trade—that she felt she had to come out strongly.” The rest of the article can be seen here.

Clinton Criticizes Obama Over Supermarket Union Ads. The New York Sun (2/25, Gerstein) reports that the Clinton campaign “is charging Senator Obama with hypocrisy for denouncing independently funded advertising campaigns,” but that “Clinton’s own position on the appropriate role for so-called 527 organizations is murky, a fact which complicates her attempt to tarnish Mr. Obama concerning the issue.” The Sun notes that the Clinton campaign was reacting to “a plan by a supermarket union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on pro-Obama television advertising in Ohio.”

Clinton Regrets Husband’s “Racially Charged” Comments. The Wall Street Journal (2/25, Chozick, 2.06M) reports Hillary Clinton “expressed regret over the weekend for racially charged comments her husband made in South Carolina that some pundits have said played a part in her campaign's recent troubles.” At the annual "State of the Black Union" symposium in New Orleans, Clinton said, “If anyone was offended by anything that was said, whether it was meant or not, or misinterpreted or not, then obviously, I regret that.”
Clinton Campaign Questions Obama’s Support For Israel. Newsweek (2/25, Hirsh, Ephron, 3.12M) reports that the Clinton campaign has “sent around negative material about Obama's relations with Israel, according to e-mails obtained by NEWSWEEK.” The e-mails “raise questions about Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor at Obama's Trinity Church in Chicago. Wright has criticized Israel, and Trumpet, a publication run by his daughter, gave an award for ‘greatness’ to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who once called Judaism a ‘bloodsucking religion."
Obama Draws “Surprising Numbers” Of Republican Voters. The Los Angeles Times (2/25, A1, Barabak, 881K) reports in a front page story on the “GOP renegades” who “are part of a striking phenomenon this campaign season: They are ‘Obamacans,’ as the senator calls them, and they are surfacing in surprising numbers, blurring the red-blue lines that color the nation's politics.” Susan Eisenhower, “a GOP business consultant and granddaughter of former President Eisenhower, has endorsed the Democratic hopeful. Colin L. Powell, who served in both Bush administrations, has hinted he may do so as well.” Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, “who quit the Republican Party after losing his reelection bid, endorsed Obama even though he campaigned for Chafee's opponent last year. Mark McKinnon, a strategist for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, says he will continue to back the Arizona senator, but will step aside rather than work against Obama if the two meet in the fall election.”

Farrakhan Praises Obama At Nation Of Islam Convention. The Chicago Tribune (2/25, Ramirez, 607K) reports that in a speech to “thousands of members of the Nation of Islam in Chicago at their annual convention, Minister Louis Farrakhan on Sunday praised presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama as the only hope for healing America's racial divisions.” Farrakhan “spoke about the war in Iraq, the nation's ailing economy and the increase in natural disasters, saying the world was in a perilous state and Obama could help it recover.” The speech, “titled ‘The Gods At War—The Future is All About Y.O.U.th,’ closed the Nation of Islam's annual Saviours' Day Convention, which commemorates the birth of the movement's founder, Wallace D. Fard Muhammad.”

Conservatives Say Obama’s Patriotism An Issue. ABC World News (2/24, story 2, 2:50, Tapper, 8.78M) reported, “If Clinton has not been able to put Obama on the defensive, Republicans are hoping to by questioning his patriotism. Making hay out of his not putting his hand over his heart last summer during the national anthem, his removal of his American flag lapel pin, and other incidents.” Obama has “said he would push back against questions of his patriotism by arguing the Republicans were the ones that took the country to war without giving troops the proper equipment. He said, quote, ‘We'll see what the American people think is the truth definition of patriotism.”


Michelle Obama Mocked For Lack Of Pride In US. In an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (2/25), Ralph R. Reiland, an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University, writes about Michelle Obama’s recent statements suggesting that she has recently become “proud of my country,” noting that during her “adult lifetime” the cold war ended, and that “could not have happened without the United States.” He adds that at the same time, the US economy made significant gains. He continues to compare Obama to Fidel Castro.


Rothenberg Asks If Obama’s “Change” Means Liberalism. In his Roll Call column (2/25), Stuart Rothenberg says Obama “continues to promise change and stress his ability to unite Americans. It’s a feel-good campaign built on soaring rhetoric and good intentions. Pardon me if all of the fawning from the national media, and the endorsements from Caroline Kennedy and Garrison Keillor, leave me less than convinced that he can bridge the deep divide that separates Americans.” In politics, “the devil is always in the details, and except in rare cases, Obama has either avoided them or, more importantly, failed to note the obvious contradictions in his message and his record.” Obama is “a wonderful speaker, and his calls for change obviously resonate with many Americans.” But “does Obama want to find common ground between Democrats and Republicans? Will he push issues and alternatives only with a national consensus? Or is ‘change’ simply a value-neutral word for liberalism?”

Obama Criticized For Backing Away From School Voucher Support. The New York Sun (2/25) editorializes, “No sooner had we issued Elizabeth Green’s dispatch under the headline ‘Obama Open to Private School Vouchers’ than his campaign was scrambling to undo the potential damage with the Democratic primary electorate,” releasing a statement reading, “Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers.” The Sun adds, “Parents of schoolchildren, in sharp contradistinction to teachers’ unions, will prefer Senator Obama’s initial statement to the clarification issued by his campaign. The initial statement was change you can believe in. The follow-up message was the same old interest-group Democratic Party politics as usual. It was plainly designed to assuage the teachers’ unions, who are the enemies of change.”