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Obama Responds to Clinton on Mailers, McCain and Nader

February 23, 2008 8:03 PM

ABC News' Sunlen Miller reports: After two of Sen. Barack Obama's mailers, one on NAFTA and the other on health care, prompted Sen. Hillary Clinton to say, "Shame on you, Barack Obama," Obama told reporters Clinton got “exercised this morning,” and that the notion that “somehow we are engaging in nefarious tactics, I think, is hard to swallow.”

“These are mailers that, by the way, went out, started going out several days ago if not weeks ago," Obama said during an unscheduled news conference in Columbus, Ohio. "So I am puzzled by the sudden change in tone. Unless these were just brought to her attention, it makes me think that there’s something tactical about her getting so exercised this morning.”

Obama said the NAFTA mailer is accurate: “Sen. Clinton, as part of the Clinton administration, supported NAFTA. In her book, she called it one of the administration’s successes.”

When challenged on the mailer's use of the word “boon” to describe how Clinton felt about NAFTA –- a word Obama attributed to Newsday, which later issued a clarification on its use of the word -- he responded, “It is true that the mailer went out before the newspaper made the correction, right? That’s my understanding and I will need to check with staff on that. The characterization that she supports NAFTA, I think, is indisputable."

Obama's staff later supplied clips from Newsday -- noting Newsday did not issue a correction, but rather said "boon" was the paper's characterization of Clinton’s words.

On the health care mailer, Obama said: “She has been the one who has made this difference about mandates the centerpiece not just of the health care debate, but practically her campaign. And what this mailer does is point out this difference that she herself surfaced and describes what the mandate that she’s calling for would mean, which is that the government would force you to buy health care. That’s indisputable. So the notion that somehow we're engaging in nefarious tactics, I think, is pretty hard to swallow."

Obama denied the characterization that his health care mailer was similar to the insurance industry's notorious “Harry and Louise” ads that helped sink Hillary Clinton's bid at health care reform during the Bill Clinton administration.

“I have seen the mailer and I completely dispute that characterization," Obama said. "Sorry, but what I don't want to do is to just rehash the specific language of the mailer. There's nothing in there that's factually inaccurate. What people are concerned about ... and that what I think Sen. Clinton would argue is that she doesn't like how the mandate is characterized because she wants to characterize it as universal health care -- just like I don't like her characterizing my plan as leaving 15 million people out. But there's nothing in that mailing that is inaccurate.”

Obama was asked to respond to some Democrats talking about whether or not Clinton should concede the race after losing 10 contests in a row. He said it would be a different question for him, because, “I'm the challenger, I'm the upstart. I'm the insurgent. She's the champ. She's part of the Democratic network in Washington and, you know, if you're the title holder then you don't lose it on points. You gotta be knocked out."

Asked to respond to the recent John McCain controversy spurred by a New York Times article, Obama noted that several of McCain's advisers have backgrounds as lobbyists.

“Many of them have been running their business on the campaign bus while they’ve been helping him and he’s comfortable with that," Obama said. "And he’s comfortable with rising money from lobbyists who are currently active in Washington. I think that is a problem.”

“I think it is a legitimate issue for voters to ask if somebody  presents themselves as a reformer and all the guys that  are running your campaign are lobbying on behalf of very special interests and industries,” Obama said of McCain in answer to another question.

Regarding a possible presidential bid by Ralph Nader, and whether the consumer advocate acted as a spoiler for Democrat Al Gore's presidential bid in 2000, Obama said, “I think anybody has the right to vote for president if they file sufficient papers. And I think the job of the Democratic Party is to be so compelling that a few percentage of the vote going to another candidate’s not going to make any difference.”

Obama confirmed that Nader has called him and reached out to his campaign.

“My sense is that Mr. Nader is somebody who, if you don’t listen and adopt all of these policies, then you’re not substantive," Obama said. "He seems to have a pretty high opinion of his own work. ... I don’t mean to diminish him, but I do think there’s a sense now that you know if somebody’s not hewing to the Ralph Nader agenda then you must be lacking in some way.”

February 23, 2008 in Bush, George W., Kucinich, Dennis | Permalink | User Comments (100)

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