Clinton: Obama mailings deceptive

AP on Yahoo ^ | 2/23/08 | Beth Fouhy - ap

[NormsRevenge]

CINCINNATI - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that a pair of mailings sent to voters by rival Barack Obama's campaign criticizing her health care plan and trade views are false, misleading and a betrayal of his pledge to practice a new style of politics.

"Shame on you, Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public — that's what I expect from you," Clinton said angrily, waving the mailings in the air.

"Meet me in Ohio, and let's have a debate about your tactics," she added.

The two presidential candidates will meet in a televised debate in Cleveland Tuesday.

Clinton spoke to reporters after an early morning rally at Cincinnati Technical College, one of several events she has held across Ohio this week. After losing eleven straight contests to Obama since Super Tuesday, the former first lady is banking on a strong showing in primaries in Ohio and Texas on March 4 to save her fading candidacy.

With so much on the line and the clock ticking, Clinton ripped into Obama much more directly and forcefully than she has in the past.

She compared Obama to President Bush during the rally, suggesting the country had already taken a gamble on an inexperienced candidate who promised change.

"People talk a lot about change. We have lived through some of the worst change that anyone could imagine the last seven years," she said to loud applause. "People thought we were getting a compassionate conservative, didn't they? It turned out he was neither. We have lived with the consequences of those mistakes."

But the New York senator saved her toughest words for Obama's mailings, saying she refused to see the campaign "polluted" by such tactics.

"Enough about the speeches, and the big rallies, and then using tactics right out of (former Bush political adviser) Karl Rove's playbook. This is wrong and every Democrat should be outraged," Clinton said.

Clinton's advisers have repeatedly criticized the Obama campaign's health care mailing, which says her plan for universal coverage would "force" everyone to purchase insurance even if they can't afford it. Her plan requires everyone to be covered, but it offers tax credits and other subsidies to make insurance more affordable.

Obama's plan does not include the so-called "individual mandate" for adults, and he has argued that people cannot be required to buy coverage if they can't afford it. He has said his first priority is bringing down costs.

The Illinois senator's plan does include a mandate requiring parents to buy health insurance to cover children.

The second mailing, on the North American Free Trade Agreement, quotes a 2006 Newsday article suggesting Clinton believed the agreement had been a "boon" to the economy. NAFTA and other trade agreements are extremely unpopular in Ohio, which has suffered an exodus of blue-collar jobs to other countries in part due to such agreements.

It's a particularly sensitive matter for Clinton, whose husband championed and pushed for passage of the agreement as president. She is counting on the support of white, working class voters in the state.

"I am fighting to change NAFTA," she insisted. "Neither of us were in the Senate when NAFTA passed. Neither voted one way or the other."

Clinton said Newsday had corrected the record about her views on the agreement. Indeed, the paper published a blog item earlier this month saying Obama's use of the word "boon" was unfair.

"Obama's use of the citation in this way does strike us as misleading. The quote marks make it look as if Hillary said "boon," not us. It's an example of the kind of slim reeds campaigns use to try to win an office."

Earlier, Newsday published an item saying the word "boon" had been their "characterization of how we best understood her position on NAFTA, based on a review of past stories and her public statements."

As evidence of their concern about the issue, the Clinton campaign released two new ads in Ohio, including one featuring John Glenn — a former astronaut and U.S. senator from Ohio for 24 years — saying Clinton would fix trade agreements like NAFTA.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the campaign stood by the accuracy of the mailings.

"We look forward to having a debate this Tuesday on the facts, and the facts are that Senator Clinton was a supporter of NAFTA and the China permanent trade treaties until this campaign began," he said. "And she herself has said that under the Clinton health care plan, she would consider 'going after the wages' of Americans."

Clinton also pushed back on questions about how her campaign had burned through nearly $130 million, only to be vastly outspent by Obama on ads and organization in several key states.

She also denied having overspent on campaign consultants. Financial reports published this week showed she had paid $7.5 million to the consulting firm of her senior strategist Mark Penn for polling and direct mail services. Clinton's top media adviser, Mandy Grunwald, was paid more than $2 million to produce ads.

"Our money goes to directly communicating with voters. That's where the money goes," Clinton said.

She added that she felt good about her prospects in Ohio and Texas but refused to say whether she needed to win both states to stay in the race.

"Let's let the people of Ohio vote. Let's actually have an election and then we can look at the results," she said.

[NormsRevenge]

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Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., lashes out at Democratic presidential rival, Sen. Barack Obama during a news conference after her rally at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College in Cincinnati, Ohio, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2008. Holding mailings, which she said are being sent by Obama's campaign, Clinton said, 'Shame on you, Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public — that's what I expect from you.' At right, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

[Darkwolf377]

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that a pair of mailings sent to voters by rival Barack Obama's campaign criticizing her health care plan and trade views are false, misleading and a betrayal of his pledge to practice a new style of politics.

Is anyone in her camp aware of how desperate her latest campaign moves appear to potential voters?

[jveritas]

Man, look at this mean, nasty and scary face. This woman is EVIL.

[NormsRevenge]

Oh Yeah!

—

Clinton also pushed back on questions about how her campaign had burned through nearly $130 million, only to be vastly outspent by Obama on ads and organization in several key states.

She also denied having overspent on campaign consultants. Financial reports published this week showed she had paid $7.5 million to the consulting firm of her senior strategist Mark Penn for polling and direct mail services. Clinton’s top media adviser, Mandy Grunwald, was paid more than $2 million to produce ads.

“Our money goes to directly communicating with voters. That’s where the money goes,” Clinton said.

[I_Like_Spam]

I think its a good move by Mrs. Clinton, in spite of how hypocritical it appears to those of us who are familiar with the political shenanigans of the Clintons.

Hillary is siezing the status of “victim” by claiming its a dirty trick. That counts for a lot among the democrats.

[Darkwolf377]

“Our money goes to directly communicating with voters. That’s where the money goes,” Clinton said.

When this line appears after the line detailing all the consultant pay, she looks like a foolish person who can't play in the big leagues.

[Petronski]

She compared Obama to President Bush during the rally, suggesting the country had already taken a gamble on an inexperienced candidate who promised change.

SHE TOO is an inexperienced candidate promising change.

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

"People thought we were getting a compassionate conservative, didn't they? It turned out he was neither. We have lived with the consequences of those mistakes."

Since you are neither compassionate or conservative either, can we keep the one we got?

If McCain does not use that quote to drill her into the ground he is a bigger RINOturd than I thought.

[Buckeye Battle Cry]

I can’t wait to cross-over on March 4 and vote against her.

She’s running out of time to fire the big guns on the Obamamessiah. It’s now or never Shrillary.

[Crimson Elephant]

I can’t understand why you would vote AGAINST HRC vs Obama. Seems to me HRC is easier to beat in Nov.

[toddlintown]

I thought she was going to shine his shoes for him at the last debate, now she’s trash talking.

If I was Obama, I’d go with the fat jokes.

Hillary’s ass is so big it has its own zipcode.

[Petronski]

This blogger has posted the actual mailers.

[Petronski]

Whoops, that link only has the second mailer, but not the first.

[Southack]

Because she’s backed by slime like Sid Blumenthal, Harold Ickes, and Terry McAuliffe, she needs to be beaten by the Left, if possible.

We’ll take care of winning the General election with the Center and Right if the Left can win the Dem Primaries (and convention/post-convention fight).

[Petronski]

Here's the first mailer.

[Buckeye Battle Cry]

“I can’t understand why you would vote AGAINST HRC vs Obama. Seems to me HRC is easier to beat in Nov.”

You are assuming a straight and fair election. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER trust the legitimacy of any campaign that a Clinton is running in. How is it that the blackest precincts in America (Harlem) recorded ZERO votes for Obama on Super Tuesday?

No, take out the Clinton now while she is most vulnerable. If she lives to fight again, the media, super donors and all political fixers will rally to her.

Obama is imminently beatable. Nobody has taken a legitimate swing at him yet. He and his uber-racist wife will be easy pickings once he has to start answering questions and filling out his policies with details.

Hillary is in a politically correct trap partially of her own making. She can’t make legitimate attacks on Obama without looking like a hypocrite (which will backfire on her).

Take out the demon now and deal with the cult of personality on our own terms. He won’t carry a single Southern state and McCain’s lame attitude on illegals will actually make it easier to put California into play.

She’s down. Don’t let her up. Keep the heal of the boot on her throat until her campaign has suffocated and died. Otherwise, there will be hell to pay.

[Southack]

[alloysteel]

Mailings from ANY Democratican election campaign committee are deceptive by their very nature.

They are trying to sell an inferior product, the expansion of the nanny state, to a public that seems ready and willing to pay the costs of bearing that nanny state.

They will be exhanging a pig in the poke for FAR too much money, and at the danger of never being able to renegotiate the deal.

Depend on it: Whatever taxation program is mandated as part of the platform of the Democratican party and instituted by the Democraticans of Congress , will result in a SHRINKAGE of revenue INTO the Treasury, while at the same time expanding the demands on the resources of that Treasury.

The Laffer Curve works, no matter HOW many times it gets discredited by the tax-expansion people, in support of class warfare. Lowered rates of taxation, spread over a wider part of the citizens who are potential voters, results in INCREASED revenue. To pay for all these expanded programs, the economy has to be encouraged to grow. And growth only occurs when the conditions is optimized, be it a child, a tree, or an economy.

Confiscatory taxation is NOT an optimal condition. But both Herself, the Cold and Joyless, and Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., the charming and messianic Magic Negro, have as their objective the demand that old tax rates for the upper income earners be restored to their pre-2000 levels (by allowing current reductions in taxation rates to expire). Think of it, an automatic tax rate increase, just by doing nothing at all.

And as much as it seems counterintuitive, the cash flow into the US Treasury will cut off, with varying degrees of sharpness, depending on how quickly the old rates are restored.

[taxesareforever]

"Meet me in Ohio, and let's have a debate about your tactics," she added.

Oh, you mean like the "I love you too" debate in Texas?