Clinton’s Obama Conundrum
By Dyre42 | Related entries in 2008 Election, General Politics, NewsFollowing up on the better late than never theme:
Democratic Front-Runners Tangle After Monday Night’s Debate
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said today that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, made comments that were “irresponsible and frankly naive” when he said in Monday night’s debate that he would meet with leaders of rogue nations during his first year in office.
Clinton’s response, made in an interview with an Iowa newspaper, marks the sharpest exchange to date between the top two Democratic candidates for president and the first time Clinton has explicitly attacked another Democratic candidate.
It represents an elevation in a simmering dispute between the two camps, and a continuation of a specific argument at Monday’s debate.
The question that sparked the controversy at Monday’s debate seemed simple enough: Would the candidates for president be willing to meet, within their first year in office, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?
Obama said yes, while Clinton said no, arguing that the president should only meet with world leaders who are hostile to the United States after lower-level diplomatic contacts are conducted. In an interview today with the Quad City Times, Clinton more directly criticized Obama’s answer.
“I thought that was irresponsible and frankly naive,” Clinton said, according to a story posted on the newspaper’s Web site.
Striking back, Obama called the newspaper Tuesday, saying what was “irresponsible and naive” was voting to authorize the Iraq war.
“What she’s somehow maintaining is my statement could be construed as not having asked what the meeting was about. I didn’t say these guys were going to come over for a cup of coffee some afternoon,” he said, calling this a “fabricated controversy.” more
What Clinton doesn’t seem to have grasped is that she needs to be careful on when, how, and why she attacks Obama. In past races the nominee could count on the majority of Dem’s backing them after their first choice failed to win the nomination. However since Obama is pulling in many independents and some moderate Republicans there is no guarantee that she would reap a windfall of Obama supporters should she win the nomination. This is especially true if Bloomberg runs or Unity08 successfully fields a Dem presidential candidate with a GOP Vice Presidential candidate or a GOP presidential candidate with Obama as VP.
Given the fact that voters from both sides of the aisle dislike Clinton and that voter dissatisfaction is high she has to beat Obama on the issues rather than through attacks if she wants enough of his supporters to remain engaged and back her. Otherwise she risks losing the election by winning the nomination.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 and is filed under 2008 Election, General Politics, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 26th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Problem is that many democrats, including myself, will not vote for Clinton regardless.
Many of us have stated that we refuse to vote for her. when asked if the supreme court is any concideration, we feel if the democrats, knowing how much dislike and distrust of Hillary is on the democratic side, that indies and republicans hate her, and she energizes the republican base to come out, why in the hell did they nominate her in the first place. they knew they were risking everything on a candidate who is not liked, a candidate viewed as a republican by democrats and the way others feel. And nominate her regardless of all the evidence and push back against her.
then they have no one to blame but their own clueless selves.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
This whole “dust-up,” as it has been called, is completely pointless. They will both end up on the same ticket anyway.