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Obama Camp Looks Past DNC Meeting to November
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ShareMay 28, 2008 4:13 PM
ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: On a conference call held by Sen. Barack Obama's campaign to discuss the state of the race and Saturday's DNC Rules and Bylaws meeting, advisers to the Illinois senator looked ahead to November using the phrase "general election" 17 times, a point highly indicative of the tone of the campaign and the mood of the conference call.
Campaign manager David Plouffe said repeatedly that they are looking forward to Saturday's decision to close the nominating chapter and move on to the general election, "I think the attention of both the voters and the party is quickly turning towards the general election. So we're hoping that there can be some reasonable resolution on Saturday that allows us to move now firmly to the general election."
Despite reports, Plouffe said they are "not encouraging" Obama supporters to gather in Washington, D.C. to protest Saturday's meeting, "We are not encouraging our people to gather and protest on Saturday -- obviously with the click of a mouse it would be pretty easy for us to get thousands of people there but we don't think it’s a helpful dynamic to create chaos and, in the interest of party unity, we're encouraging our supporters not to protest. We don't think a scene, as we wind down the primary season here, is helpful to bringing the party together."
The campaign, as they have in the past, indicated that they would be willing to compromise on the decision to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations beyond their original demand of a 50/50 split of the delegates.
The campaign repeatedly gave themselves a large pat on the back for this compromise and giving what they categorized as "concessions" on this issue in the best interest of the party, and doing it realizing they may be handing delegates over to Clinton.
"I think the Clinton campaign is out there saying 'no compromise, only 100%' - we're willing to compromise and I think that's where most of the party is." Plouffe said, "We have fought hard all throughout the country for delegates and the fact that we are willing to essentially seat her delegates we do not think is an insignificant gesture on our part."
Plouffe said the popular vote argument the Clinton campaign is making has not been effective, "We do not think the popular vote is a true metric of the race, it's about delegates. Now that being said, we have a significant popular vote lead," Plouffe continued, "They have been making this argument for weeks, I think you can tell by the superdelegate tally how effective it is."
Plouffe concluded, "At some point we're the nominee, and at some point and I think the folks in Florida and Michigan can speak to this, what they’re interested is to stop arguing about this and start winning general election."
May 28, 2008 in Kucinich, Dennis | Permalink | User Comments (96)
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why should she compromise when she can still take it to the flooor.
Posted by: Bishop | May 28, 2008 4:23:39 PM
This is the guy who preaches "Hope", "Change", "a New Kind of Politics". Yet, the first thing, before he is nominated, that he will do is to disenfranchise the votes of FL and MI.
He is the person who voluntarily took off his name off the ballot to pander the voters in Iowa, now that he is the cry baby to whine that he did not get any vote.
Take some responsibility for once in your Bho's adult life. The Dreams of His Father did not teach him such a thing since his father did not take any responsibility to raise his son.
Posted by: a new name | May 28, 2008 4:27:01 PM
50/50 is not the way the people of fl. voted or MI. and lets cut the crap Obama had tv ads and rolling calls going in both states and a blog on his site on how to make sure he won in MI.if they don't cpunt why did he do that I wonder
Posted by: Bishop | May 28, 2008 4:27:06 PM
TAKE IT TO THE FLOOR HILLARY!!! WE WILL SUPPORT YOU!!!
Posted by: CARL | May 28, 2008 4:28:59 PM
Commander Guy,
She has every right to burn down her own house if she wants to. The Clintons were the ones who built it in the first place!
Posted by: Get Real | May 28, 2008 4:38:47 PM
Get Real - You are right. Ya can't let the new fellow have the keys, can you?
Posted by: The Commander Guy | May 28, 2008 4:40:09 PM
Commander Guy,
No you can't. He'll just put the house in ruin anyway.
Posted by: Get Real | May 28, 2008 4:42:15 PM
Obama shouldn't have blocked a re-vote, this would've been settled by now. NO COMPROMISE, GO TO THE CONVENTION!
Posted by: CD | May 28, 2008 4:44:52 PM
At least you are honest about it. Hillary is entitled to the House and it is HERS or Nobodies
Posted by: The Commander Guy | May 28, 2008 4:45:08 PM
Hillary would beat McCain in a landslide.
Obama will lose
Anyone with any sense to them, or has not lost their mind to obama, will never vote for him and should not
He should never be president of this Great Country.
Posted by: kerry | May 28, 2008 4:57:34 PM
Why 50/50?? He knows he can't get 50% of FL.
Can we ask 50/50 for NC?
Posted by: catleya | May 28, 2008 5:06:06 PM
I don't think Obama has done much to Hillary other than to give her enough rope. She then proceeded to use it to her extreme disadvantage.
Posted by: anabel | May 28, 2008 5:06:12 PM
Why Clintons are so loyal to the Democrat Party, be Independent Hillary!
Posted by: catleya | May 28, 2008 5:10:29 PM
They are called rules people, ever heard of them? Obama played by them and is winning fairly - if you have a problem with the rules and how they are enforced you take it up with the person who sets the rules (and not the players). The person who set the rules dismissing FL & MI votes was Terry McAuliffe aka HRC's Campaign Chairman.
Posted by: Jua | May 28, 2008 5:12:02 PM
We are moving to the Convention, not the General Election... Obama is NOT the nominee...
Posted by: The Commander Guy | May 28, 2008 5:17:33 PM
Texas, which produced a bush, has an even more intelligent design: Count the damn vote twice, and award the loser more delegates.
Posted by: Olbermn3 | May 28, 2008 5:32:30 PM
Rules that were in place WELL before your now irrelevant candidate signed up to run for office.
Seriously, do you guys even read?
Posted by: Texas Voter | May 28, 2008 5:35:43 PM
Hillary wants it all; however, the best she can legally hope for is that half of FL and MI delegates are seated or all delegates are seated with half a vote each. These numbers will be negligible in support of her continuing on. An exercise in futility!
If she gets everything she wants, that would send the signal that something is rotten in the DNC.
Hillary, the Queen of Spin and a Legend in Her Own Mind!
Posted by: Bob | May 28, 2008 5:36:23 PM
On the floor she can get all of her delagates Obama won't have enough until the convention cause the supers can't vote untilthe them is the rulz's
Posted by: Bishop | May 28, 2008 5:45:44 PM
Even if they seat Michigan and Florida he still has an insurmountable delegate lead. She's just trying to make him look illegitimate so her supporters will sit the election out and give her another shot in 2012. Unfortunately for her, a lot of Obama supporters see through her games and will fight even harder than we fought this time to prevent her from being the nominee in 2012 if she continues to sabotage Obama.
Posted by: Laura | May 28, 2008 5:53:36 PM
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