Obama's Cup of Tea

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December 28, 2007 3:59 PM

ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: Six days from the Iowa caucuses and the battle over experience has not subsided.

Barack Obama insists his experiences traveling and having family living overseas brings more to the table than, let's say, the job of a former first lady.

"It's that experience, that understanding, not just of what world leaders I went and talked to in the ambassadors house I had tea with, but understanding the lives of the people like my grandmother who lives in a tiny hut in Africa," Obama, D-Ill., told a crowd of would-be voters in Coralville, Iowa, on Friday.

The veiled shot at Senator Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., couldn't be more succinct as he argued that her experience level as a first lady doesn't outshine his as a world traveler.

Obama went on to argue that this difference led him to make judgment about the Iraq war.

"That's the experience that helped inform my opposition to the war in Iraq, that's the kind of experience that's rooted in the real lives of the American people," he said.

Obama's tea comment sparked a response from Clinton's campaign Friday. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a supporter of Clinton's, issued a statement.

"Senator Clinton has been in refugee camps, clinics, orphanages, and villages all around the world, including places where tea is not the usual drink," Albright said. "In addition to these experiences she has met with world leaders and has known many of them for years. I have been with her on many of these occasions, and it is this combination of experience and understanding that sets her apart from the field, and why I am supporting her for President."

Clinton refused to respond Friday when reporters asked her about Obama's "tea" comments.

At a campaign stop Friday in Clinton, Iowa reporters asked Obama to clarify his remarks.

Obama said, "Why do you guys like to gin up these kind of stories like this? I was making the same comment I've made many times which is that knowing a country is more to do than visiting an ambassador's office, those folks must really be on edge if they think we spend all our time thinking about them," he said. "They need to think about the American people a little more instead of us."

But it has all been rough and tumble on the campaign trail.

At an earlier town hall event in Williamsburg, Iowa, Obama recalled a recent conversation with his wife, Michelle Obama.

The candidate recounted told the crowd how his aspiring first lady told him, " 'You know, in eight years, I'm not sure we'd be the same people as we are now,' " and joked that they are "not doing this again."

Just five years ago, Obama told the crowd, the couple had just paid off their student loads after ten years of law school and hadn't yet set up a college fund for their daughters.

"My wife was still shopping at Target. She still does," Obama said. "And she said, 'You know, eight years from now, we will have lost a little bit of touch with what ordinary families are going through. We'll still be good people, hopefully, but we'll be in a different orbit, in a different circle. Our worries will be different and our concerns will be different. And we're already there, but at least we'll still remember what that was like.' And I thought that that was a wonderful insight."

The candidate, who regularly refers to Senator Clinton and her husband former President Bill Clinton as part of the "Washington establishment", continued, "One of the things that I think I offer in this race is. . . the way (Michelle) put it is, 'We still remember what it's like to be normal.' But I think that's part of what happens when you're in Washington for a very long time -- you lose touch with that."

ABC News' Eloise Harper contributed to this report.

You can read more of Sunlen Miller's dispatches from the campaign trail by clicking here. And for the latest on the 2008 race for the White House, read The Note every morning.

December 28, 2007 in Bush, George W., Kucinich, Dennis, Tancredo, Tom | Permalink | User Comments (137)

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Newsflash Obambi: Normalcy in our country ended long long ago...

Also, immediately cutting off aid to Pakistan is about the most insane idea I have heard yet this silly season. Is Mr. Obambi Hussein getting his talking points from Dennis "UFO" Kucinich and/or Ron "Anti-Semite" Paul?

Posted by: Robert Marley | Dec 28, 2007 4:31:10 PM

Obama and Hillary will both have some new questions to answer, along with Giuliani and Huckabee. They all just made Judicial Watch's Top 10 Most Corrupt Politicials list!

Posted by: Cory | Dec 28, 2007 4:31:15 PM

we in illinois remember what it was like to have two senators (only one was respected, Peter Fitzgerald)

Posted by: JACK | Dec 28, 2007 4:34:43 PM

Our country needs Obama right now. He can bring this country together at a time when we are too polarized to accomplish what needs to be done. We need to ensure that citizens have health care and that we don't launch preemptive wars under false pretenses. We need to regain our soul and stop torturing people and locking them up indefinitely without any charges.

Know hope.

Vote for Obama (I'm talking to you Iowans!)

Posted by: Anthony Johnson | Dec 28, 2007 4:41:05 PM

Wait a minute here.
Obama allows his Grandmother,
to live in a "tiny hut in Africa",
yet he is a millionaire?
Does anyone else see something
very wrong about that?

Posted by: SpottedOwlStew | Dec 28, 2007 4:44:32 PM

The man is a great orator, But the capacity to tell an engaging story is not what makes a great leader.
Unfortunatly, he does not have a clue how the real world works.

Posted by: Spastic Jack | Dec 28, 2007 4:47:46 PM

We need a fresh start. Vote Obama 2008

And FYI - the vituperative attacks against Obama must mean that he is really threatening to people. Good. He's threatening because he's a sign of the future. A hopeful future.

Posted by: Jill | Dec 28, 2007 5:07:44 PM

SpottedOwlStew you could not be more right. What American grandson, regardless of wealth, would allow his grandmother to live in a hovel? If he accepts this type of treatment of his own family then what about the American elderly?

Posted by: lindafranke1952 | Dec 28, 2007 5:08:57 PM

"Eight years from now"?

A bit presumptuous don't you think?

Posted by: ray | Dec 28, 2007 5:10:46 PM

Hey...my wife still shops at Target! Sounds like a cheap shot at us common folk to me....

Posted by: Bob | Dec 28, 2007 5:27:56 PM

This message is in response to Robert Marley.
Cutting off aid to a puppet military dictator that uses the money to oppress his people and drive them into the arms of the Taliban is a good idea. That and to say Ron Paul is an anti-semite just shows your ignorance. His 3 mentors in economics whose pictures hang on his wall were all Jewish. Rothbard, Mises and Hayek. What an anti-semite. Do a little research. You don't agree with him and that is fine but don't talk out your ###.

Posted by: nate | Dec 28, 2007 5:30:57 PM

Did any of you stop to think that maybe Obama's grandmother WANTS to live in that African hut and does not want the materialistic trappings that an American life offers? Or maybe she doesn't want to live in the US at all! You clowns think everyone in the world wants an American lifestyle? No thanks, you can keep your daily Paris Hilton news flashes and sub-prime loans to yourselves!

Just because you can afford it does not mean you want it or need it.

Posted by: realist | Dec 28, 2007 5:41:59 PM

um..hovel? Why does it have to be a hovel? Maybe she is happy living in clean air and clean land in a modest hut living a modest life? I'm sure if she were in distress like the sally struthers Commercials, he'd help.

Please dig deeper for some mud worth tossing. Your lack of respect is very apparent.

Posted by: Grimjack | Dec 28, 2007 5:48:39 PM

d'yeh think Mitt Romney's wife still shops at Target? What it was was a sparkling endorsement for Target.

keeeeep diggin....

Posted by: GrimJim | Dec 28, 2007 5:50:17 PM

Musharraf is a military dictator and we have funded him with billions of dollars.

What have we gotten in return?

Chaos.

Robert Marley needs to go over himself and fix everything. He is so brave and smart.

Posted by: Rich | Dec 28, 2007 5:53:54 PM

I'M WITH YOU RAY, A BIT PRESUMPTUOUS
DON'T YOU THINK ??? HE IS DEFINATELY NOT READY FOR THIS JOB, THAT IS FOR SURE...
THERE IS ONLY ONE PERSON THAT CAN HANDLE THIS JOB AND IN THESE TIMES AND THAT IS
RUDY, AND HE CAN'T WIN EITHER.

Posted by: dommie | Dec 28, 2007 5:55:17 PM

Robert:

Barack Obama is not a Muslim. He is a Born-Again Christian. First, get your facts straight. Second, do not presume to know all of America's opinions. Third, who cares if he were Muslim?

Ignorance. It's a detrimental thing.

Realist:
You took the words right out of my mouth. His grandmother might not want a lavish lifestyle; no one can know for sure except for Barack and his grandmother, so accusing him of being a horrible son is not valid.

Posted by: Mel1747 | Dec 28, 2007 6:00:14 PM

"Third, who cares if he were Muslim?"

Wow, somebody is out of touch with reality.

Posted by: Decent Person | Dec 28, 2007 6:13:05 PM

born again christian is only slightly better than islamic. they are both whacked out fundamentalists that should be feared.

Posted by: Jeff Jackson | Dec 28, 2007 6:20:23 PM

Why does a US senators grandmother live in a tiny hut in Africa, without water and electricity??? Do you think Hillary Clinton's grandmother would be living in a tiny hut in Africa? This is disgraceful. Do he and his successful Law firm partner wife not have enough money to enough his grandmother lives somewhere other than a hut?

Posted by: s.b. | Dec 28, 2007 6:20:55 PM

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