Mark Penn, Senator Clinton’s “Chief Campaign Strategist” had a little chat with reporters this morning. Of all the topics he could have picked he chose to discuss this one:
Though the campaign later argued that he hadn’t said it, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief campaign strategist told reporters this morning that Sen. Barack Obama “can’t win the general election.” […]
[Penn] says Obama “really can’t win the general election.” … [H]e also says that “if Barack Obama can’t win” in Pennsylvania, “how could he win the general election?”
Later, a reporter asks what he meant. Clinton campaign communications chief Howard Wolfson jumps in to say that “Mark did not say that.”
Then Penn says that if Obama doesn’t win the Pennsylvania primary, it “raises serious questions” about whether he can win the general election.
Not surprising that Penn might say this since his firm also represents — wait for it — the presumptive Republican nominee, St. John of the Perpetual War McCain. Too bad he was speaking as a prominent member of Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign. You know, Senator Clinton, the Democrat. The Democrat who if she can’t be the Democratic nominee, apparently doesn’t want the Democrats to win the White House.
Why do I say that? Because it’s her campaign. These are her employees. If she didn’t want her campaign to be continually tearing down the ability and electability of her opponent, if she didn’t want to run scary attack ads suggesting he isn’t up to protecting your children at three am in the morning, if she didn’t want to send her surrogates out to make blatantly racist appeals about Senator Obama, she could have chosen not to do so. This is her campaign. She’s in control. She’s the one with all the experience, as she frequently reminds us. So, it is only fair to make the assumption that these attacks on Obama were authorized by her, and she is responsible for them. Indeed some of the attacks, like the one that suggested she and Republican Senator McCain are the only two candidates remaining who have passed the “Commander in Chief threshold” (whatever the hell that meant), came straight from her own lips.
Certainly she hasn’t chosen to reject or renounce these attacks very often, though she did accept Geraldine Ferraro’s bitter and ungracious resignation letter in which no apology was ever offered to Senator Obama for Ferraro’s grossly offensive remarks. This came a day after her campaign manager chose to blame Senator Obama for inserting race into the campaign because he defended himself against the suggestion by Ferraro that the only reason he’s still in this campaign is because he’s a black man, as if “affirmative action” somehow applies to Presidential politics.
It’s a very, ugly, nasty, sleazy road Senator Clinton has chosen to take her campaign down, a road in which nothing apparently is out of bounds. I have a question for you Senator Clinton: Even if somehow you manage to win the nomination in Denver by hook or by crook, what will you have won? Your party will be divided, and many stalwart supporters of the party in the past will not turn out to vote for you in November. You will have painted yourself as a rank opportunist who will say and do anything to win. And you will have given Senator McCain the greatest gift any Republican can have by allowing him to frame the campaign in terms that are the most favorable to Republicans.
It has been suggested that you fully recognize that, absent a Spitzer-type sex scandal involving Senator Obama, you are highly unlikely to win the nomination. So the only rational explanation for your campaign’s continued smears and attacks on Obama at this point is to weaken his chances for the general election. Because if he wins the Presidency, your next opportunity to run for President won’t realistically come until 2016. On the other hand, should he lose to Senator McCain, you can start running for the 2012 Democratic nomination the day after the election on November 4th. I hate to believe this is the reason you are remaining in the race at this point, but to be honest, I no longer give you the benefit of the doubt on the question.
Not only will many Obama supporters not turn out for her if she is the nominee, but the longer this goes, and the nastier it gets between both sides, the fewer Clinton supporters will turn out for Obama in November. I’m seeing more and more of this on pro-Hillary sites. I think this is intentional as well, doom him to failure.
If the super delegates and party leaders don’t step in soon to end this travesty, that is precisely what will happen. And John “Hot tempered” McCain will be in charge of the nuclear codes.
Ain’t gonna happen. Notice today the agreement for 2 more debates. This takes us to NC with a primary on May 6.
We have a choice here: politics as usual or take a chance on something new and promising.
We know what we will get with HRC: all eggs in a few baskets (will McCain oversee election theft on a par with his predecessor?), campaigns that bring out the worst in everybody, undue influence of big donors, pugnacious candidate, foreign policy driven by the likes of Giustra, ad nauseum.
actually this is causing Hillary supporters to turn on Hillary. My mom doesn’t understand how she can justify staying in if she can’t win without undemocratically elected superdelegates. She also took offense when Hillary stated McCain would be preferable. She is basically a yellow dog dem, and supported Hillary because she was the party favorite. Once you run down the party and favor a repuke you lose her support.
That at the upcoming debate in PA, Clinton gets asked point blank on this has to walk back everything her campaign has been saying this past week.
Debate? When is this debate? Obama shouldn’t be accepting any more debates with non-viable candidates.
Obama countered with one in NC
good seasoning for him in the GE campaign. Practice makes perfect.
Matt: Here’s what Penn is spinning
More campaign news on the plan for revotes in MI FL.
(Note the MSM is overlooking the fact pre-approval is required by the DOJ, likely to take 2-6 months):
Michigan compromise
Florida true to brand, still chad squabbling think plan in trouble
The DOJ is going to do absolutely nothing that will resolve this before the convention, as they exist solely to serve the head criminals of the GOP.
that’s the rub
Absolutely, the more people see of Obama, the more they can tell that he’s the candidate with the self-control and the control of his campaign to keep his campaign on message. No matter how Hillary’s campaign is spinning his recent remarks, they are the ones who have taken the campaign negative and interjected racism into it. Other than leaving no personal attack unanswered (a hardwon lesson Kerry could have used), Obama has stayed positive and focused on issues.
The Clinton campaign has been claiming that she was vetted by the press for this run long ago. Clearly, the many skeletons in both Clintons’ closets have not been covered; but that is the press’ responsibility, not Obama’s. If the MSM won’t do its research on Clinton’s negatives, the netroots can beat them to it (as they have on so many stories).
See over there.———>
I wish. But just more plastic smiles, fake indignation, and (badly) scripted barbs, I bet.
i just heard Pelosi say that neither Obama or Hillary will be on the 2008 ticket.
does she know something?
is something afoot?
What Pelosi said is that there is no chance of both of them being on the ticket together.
Every grotesque, ham-handed swipe the Clintons take at Obama’s electability just further demonstrates what an intractable and hopeless situation they find themselves in–though I’m continually shocked at what a demonstrable moron Penn is. There are good articles all over the place today suggesting neutral superdelegates are taking a fresh look at the verifiable strengths of Obama’s “coattails” argument and may be coming around. They’re justifiably concerned about the many downticket races this cycle, and Foster’s stunning win in IL-14 perked their ears up. Once it begins, the Clintons could find themselves put out of this thing before they know it.
I keep waiting for Mark Penn to reach up and rip his face off and reveal that he is indeed Karl Rove or Wolfson to rip his off and reveal Dick Cheney under the rubber mask.
A Clinton-McCain or McCain-Clinton ticket is the only way the right-wing will make it to November.
It is up to YOU DEMOCRATS to get to the super-delegates who represent YOU and demand that they step up NOW and end this travesty.
If you don’t do it nobody else can.