Obama Not Taking Wisconsin For Granted
CHICAGO -- Barack Obama' campaign is trying to stop a Hillary Clinton comeback in Wisconsin by spending more time and money in the state. They're betting that the Wisconsin primary will be much closer than expected and, as a result, have decided to continue campaigning in state through tomorrow evening.
Just because the campaign has made that decision doesn't mean Mother Nature is cooperating; Obama had one event scheduled in Kaukauna, Wis. today but it was canceled due to weather conditions. Obama will most likely appear on several television interviews in the state instead.
While the campaign has launched an aggressive television advertising campaign in Wisconsin for over a week now, Obama has only held a marginal lead over Clinton. In the latest poll, WISC-TV poll, Obama leads Clinton by only 5 points, 47 percent to 42 percent.
Obama strategist, David Axelrod and Clinton strategist, Howard Wolfson, appeared on CBS' Face the Nation this morning, where the two got into a heated discussion about Clinton's call for a debate in Wisconsin.
Face the Nation host, Bob Schieffer, asked Axelrod if Obama has decided not to accept additional debates because he deems himself to be the frontrunner.
"If you're ahead, you don't debate; if you're not ahead, you say `let's debate.' Isn't that really what you're doing here?" Schieffer said.
Axelrod argued that the additional two debates in the next five days are plenty; however Wolfson accused Axelrod of not debating in Wisconsin because he is ahead.
"The Obama strategy here is essentially to debate in states where they're behind, but not debate in states where they're ahead," Wolfson argued.
Axelrod said the statement was "nonsense" and noting that the upcoming debates are national.
"Eight million people watched the debate from California, and I guarantee you they weren't all Californians. Most of them were in other parts of the country. So that's an empty argument as far as I'm concerned," Axelrod said.
"We're going to have two national debates. I think they're going to be well watched all across this country because people understand the importance of this campaign."
Meantime, Obama supporters Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Gov. Jim Doyle, D-Wis., are accusing Clinton of launching a negative campaign in Wisconsin.
"She only arrived in the state yesterday and we have more of this stuff going on," Doyle said.
Kennedy said he is "shocked and surprised" by a Clinton pamphlet that is circulating in Wisconsin, arguing that Obama's health care plan is not universal. He described the pamphlet as "a misrepresentation and wrong" and said he would not support Obama if his plan were not universal.
Kennedy said both Obama and Clinton's health care plans are universal, but that that the two can have differences on specifics.
"It doesn't have to be this way, they can have differences," Kennedy argued.
"What is not legitimate is to undermine the central position of Barack Obama not being for universal comprehensive coverage," Kennedy added.
"That is the kind of distortion that we had back in '94, and misrepresentation and that is fundamentally wrong."
However, FactCheck.org, a non-partisan website run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, backs up Clinton's claim in a recent report that Obama's plan is not universal.
Obama will be back in Wisconsin tomorrow evening after a brief campaign stop in Ohio.