April 14, 2008
Obama Shows Unexpected Pugnacity
Politico: Candidate Has Displayed Uncanny Ability To Fight Back When Attacked
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Play CBS Video Video Obama Blasts Clinton's Actions "CBS News RAW": Sen. Barack Obama blasts rival Sen. Hillary Clinton for campaigning for free trade agreements and then calling him "out of touch" with American workers.
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Video Obama's Foot Tastes Bitter Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain force Sen. Barack Obama to defend his 'elitist' remarks, but their attacks receive mixed reactions. Dean Reynolds reports.
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Video Clinton Ad Pounces On Obama Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign throws Obama's "bitter" comments back at him in a new ad, hoping it will help maintain her lead in Pennsylvania. Dean Reynolds reports.
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Photo Essay Barack Obama A look at the life and meteoric rise of the president-elect.
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Timeline Democratic Campaign Trail Notable events in the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Senator Barack Obama’s instantly infamous remarks on how small-town Americans “cling” to their faith, their guns, and their xenophobia began drawing attention around 3:30 p.m. Friday.
Obama’s aides went into radio silence, rebuffing requests to explain or respond while his rivals attacked him. At 6:30, his campaign put out a statement that, instead of explaining his words, threw the criticism back at his rivals. Then, just before 9:00 that evening, the candidate himself responded during a speech in Terre Haute, Indiana, with an attack of his own, expressing incredulity that his rivals had called him “out of touch.”
“Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain - it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem,” he said, while also criticizing Hillary Clinton for her vote on to make declaring personal bankruptcy harder.
“She says I’m out of touch?”
The response was signature Obama: Attack first, sort out the details later, if at all. No apology, no immediate regret, just a sharp counterattack. For a candidate sometimes mocked for being too soft to win a political fistfight, he has shown an uncanny ability to take a punch, and then rear back and deliver one in return.
When Obama responds this way, it leaves him open to charges that he's undermining his so-called politics of hope. But, showing remarkable dexterity, he has a knack for using these flare-ups to pivot back to the central theme of his candidacy: that politics is broken, and he knows how to change it.
Obama, it turns out, has been a devout observer of a philosophy future President Bill Clinton laid out as far back as 1981.
"When someone is beating you over the head with a hammer, don't sit there and take it,” then-Governor Clinton told Time Magazine. “Take out a meat cleaver and cut off their hand.”
Many Democrats believe their two most recent nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry, ignored that rule, and they are loath to nominate another candidate susceptible to being portrayed as weak. So Obama and his inner political circle - strategist David Axelrod and campaign manager David Plouffe - have observed it religiously, dispelling an early perception that the candidate would wilt under fire from Clinton or Republicans.
Instead, when under attack, the candidate rarely acknowledges any fault - for such a move would offer critics an opening. In the case of his San Francisco remarks, perhaps the worst gaffe of his career, he conceded Saturday only that “if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that.”
Obama’s unexpected pugnacity also extends to include personal responses to tactical assaults, a level of sparring often left to spokespeople.
The examples are many, but the pattern first began to take shape last summer after a debate in South Carolina at which Obama said he would personally meet foreign dictators.
The remark appeared to be a slip, and in the spin room after the debate, Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, tried to explain it away.
But the next day, Clinton told the Quad City Times, an Iowa daily, that Obama had been “naïve and irresponsible” to offer meetings, an attack reported on the paper’s website. That afternoon, Obama himself placed a call to the reporter who wrote the story.
It was Clinton, he said, who had been “irresponsible and naïve” to vote to authorize the war in Iraq. And he embraced his promise to meet the hostile leaders, casting Clinton’s reluctance - a line his campaign continued to amplify throughout the fall - as similar to the Bush administration’s stance.
Obama has eagerly pursued other attacks. He memorably mocked Clinton for finding evidence of untoward ambition in his elementary school writings. When Clinton called to “tur up the heat” on the Republicans, Obama suggested “more light” instead.
In late February, reporters traveling with Obama in Ohio learned - before the story hit the wires or the blogs - from Obama’s staff that McCain had accused the Illinois senator of ignorance of the presence of Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq.
Obama, taking the stage at Ohio State University minutes later, responded with vigor.
"John McCain thought that he could make a clever point," said Obama. "I have some news for John McCain. And that is that there was no such thing as al-Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq.”
More recently, when faced with the incendiary video of his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright attacking Clinton, followed by more video of the minister’s criticism of American, Obama eschewed the counterattacks. But nevertheless he hewed to a familiar course: no apology, no concession of wrongdoing. His position was that he hadn’t been in the pews for Wright’s reported controversial statements.
Obama’s immediate responses, the campaign quickly decided, were insufficient. And so just six days later Obama sought to cast the issue in his own terms with a major speech on the easier aspect of Wright’s words to address, race, while ignoring Wright’s anti-American comments.
But the most recent flap over his remarks about small-town Pennsylvanians represented a return to form as he moved first to attack Clinton and McCain.
Then came what seemed to a departure. In a slow-motion roll-out that may have slightly prolonged the story, Obama tiptoed up to an apology, before returning to his comfort zone. On Sunday evening, with particular glee, he turned to Clinton’s discussion of her childhood hunting.
"She's running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment, she's talking like she's Annie Oakley!” he said at a stop in Pennsylvania. “Hillary Clinton's out there like she's on the duck blind every Sunday, she's packin' a six shooter! C'mon! She knows better. That's some politics being played by Hillary Clinton. I want to see that picture of her out there in the duck blinds.”
By Avi Zenilman and Ben Smith
Copyright 2008 POLITICO
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See all 967 CommentsPosted by Spinster2 at 12:06 PM : Apr 16, 2008"
The Clinton''s?!? First off we are looking at voting for Hillary Clinton not Bill. Second, the only thing Hillary did during the 8 years bill was President was chair the Clinton Health care reform which failed miserably.
The rest of her "job" as first lady included ZERO foreign policy experience, ZERO international defense experience and ZERO economic policy experience. For at least 6 of the 8 years she lived at the Whitehouse her duties consisted primarily of overseeing the Whitehouse laundry service.
Posted by mahalapril at 11:34 AM : Apr 16, 2008"
You''re not from here are you.
Obama is not the one.
Posted by seah5 at 10:51 AM : Apr 16, 2008"
You don''t follow him, you make $iht up and post Republican talking points you heard on FOX. Your information is false and you have nothing original to say.
USA no they moved I wonder why
Posted by popstom1 at 01:41 PM : Apr 16, 2008"
Spell checker is your friend, not your enemy.
USA no they moved I wonder why
this guy this Obama who looks down his nose and
says look at all the suckers The guy is a slime
Please do not be fooled by the Clinton%u2019s political tactics and lies. They ran with this "bitter issue" to take the spot light off Bill Clinton''s lies about Hillary%u2019s and Chelsea%u2019s lies, about Bosnia. All three lied for each other and all three were caught in their lies!
Once again, to the Clinton supporters, are you happy about gas prices, foreclosures, healthcare cost, unemployment, the war in Iraq and the list goes on and on, especially under the Bush Administration. . . .how can you not be bitter about American falling economy and the government hasn%u2019t done a thing to help you? Only the rich, like the Clintons, who made over a $100 million dollars in the last 8 years, are happy. Out-of-touch? Please, the Clintons are not and have not lived from pay check-to-pay check, like most Americans . . . so who''s really out-of-touch?
The Clinton''s you would think would be a shoe in. They are responsible or at least presided over the best economy and peacetime in anyones life time including John McCain''s. Bill had the usual affairs that all of our great presidents have had but job prefromance wise, they delivered.
Posted by mahalapril at 11:34 AM : Apr 16, 2008
Wow, do you honestly think the United States can afford to preemptively strike every country that might pose a risk? We''re going broke now. Well, not all of us. It''s a been a financial boon to the VP''s former employer. This entire fiasco is about lining pockets not protecting one single American hair. Wake up, please. We''ll never elect smart politicians until we become an educated society.
he might of slipped up with the bitter comment,still it was an insult. but when he came back and Tried to convince everyone by saying "Yes You are Bitter'' Was elitist. and more Obama logic If he says your bitter you better be bitter.
He loves twisting facts, telling half truths and blaming everyone for everything.
McCain said we could be in iraq 100 years. Obama ran around telling everyone, McCain said we will be at war with iraq for 100 years. It is an Obama lie since he added to the statement.
he runs around telling everyone that everything wrong in their lives is the governments fault points fingers at bush, hillary and McCain, Wait......He is the government too. Obama is more at fault than most, his
voting record is mostly Present, which says, I am here and I do not care. He did not care to do anything for the people or fix any problems.
Just a few, but there so much, Unless you follow him most people do not catch it all.
Obama is not the one.
First he said he did not know him, then that grew, and grew and grew until he was a friend for 18 years.
Rezko who was broke, helped Obama buy a house, he used money he borrowed from aucci a Muslim living in england at the moment.
Resko - Donate 20k, then it was 60k, then finally the grand totally after all the lies, was 250k More of Aucci''s money or money from the retirement board.
Ayers - He did not know him, they it was he knew him in college, Then he was a professor at the same college Obama lectured at. Then obama was to his house. (Bomber washington DC, says he would do it again)
Wright - He said, he was his mentor, confidant, best friend of 20 years, married him, spiritual guide, baptized his daughters. He bounce all his political decisions off of him.
Wright - first he never heard him say anything controversial in church, then he came back and said I did hear wright say controversial stuff in church.
Wright now - is like a old uncle, was his pastor use t be his spiritual guide.
The American People were upset hearing someone God *** America.... Obama Called Americans racist for that.
Here I thought Standing up for America against someone Damning it was Patriotic....
Not so in Obama logic.
-Feminists for Obama ''''08!-
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Posted by TXcourtney at 10:31 AM : Apr 16, 2008
All you people have is Obama''s racist shill game! Give me a break!
-Feminists for Obama ''08!-
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Posted by mpgeglia2 at 10:09 AM : Apr 16, 2008
No, you are not correct. You have sat here all morning and spewed your krap without providing one source! Not one!
The episode underscores the pitfalls confronting a candidate who rails against special interests while raising $193 million and counting %u2014 the most of any presidential campaign. Obama''s fundraising tests the limits of his claim that he is independent of Washington''s influence industry because he doesn''t take money from federal lobbyists and PACs.
Other examples that strain against that claim:
%u2022Obama holds fundraisers at law firms that lobby in Washington. Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor confirmed the campaign held five fundraisers at New York and Boston offices of three firms that lobby, including Greenberg Traurig, whose lobbying clients include gambling and handgun interests.
lol, here''s one from USA Today...quit profoundly trouncing his lies about have no ties to special interest and lobbyists, go read it.
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