Obama: "We're Winning"
NEW ALBANY, IND. -- Barack Obama was quick to respond to charges that he can't "close the deal" in his race with Hillary Clinton by saying that, in effect, he already has. "The way we're going to close the deal is by winning. And right now we're winning," Obama told reporters today.
"And you know what we'll do is keep on campaigning in Indiana and North Carolina and Oregon and these other states and at the conclusion of all these contests people will go back and take a look and say, 'who's won?'"
He dismissed the notion that John McCain will have an advantage in the general election due to the length of the Democratic primary. Obama believes that he is breaking ground in states like Pennsylvania and Indiana by campaigning there now. Regardless of the outcome in the primary, he argued that the Democrats will be unified in the general election.
"I'm confident that whoever the nominee is that the Democratic Party will be unified in August and will be unified throughout the fall. I think that nominee will be me."
Obama argued he will be able to withstand Republican attacks in November more so than Hillary Clinton. "Nobody has complained more about the press, about questions at debates, about being mistreated than Senator Clinton has or President Clinton," Obama said. "And so we have been pretty tame in terms of taking our shots and just rolling with them."
He took another swipe at Clinton's ability to "take the heat," arguing that he doesn't have to talk to tough to be tough. "I know that people like to talk tough and use a lot of rhetoric about fighting and obliterating and all that stuff - I've always believed that if you're tough you don't have to talk about it."