Obama urges Clinton to continue the race, rejects claim that supporters will jump to McCain
The NY Times:
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Senator Barack Obama had a few words of advice Saturday for his rival, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: Do not drop out on my account.
“My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants,” Mr. Obama, of Illinois, said at a news conference in a high school gymnasium here. “Her name is on the ballot. She is a fierce and formidable opponent, and she obviously believes she would make the best nominee and the best president.”
A few prominent Obama supporters have recently suggested that the time has come for Mrs. Clinton, of New York, to consider withdrawing from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, for one, said last week that Mrs. Clinton could not win the race and that her attacks on Mr. Obama were hurting “more than anything that John McCain has said.”
Mrs. Clinton’s forces have mounted a vigorous counterattack, saying she trails by a fairly narrow margin in the overall popular vote and in the delegate count. She has suggested to two allies that party leaders are trying to bully her.
The back and forth on Mrs. Clinton’s future is accompanied by a tactical subtext. Both she and Mr. Obama have applied pressure on each other, political and financial, and then taken the role of victim to rally their partisans and donors.
Former President Bill Clinton dismissed the notion that the discord had hurt the party’s chances of capturing the White House.
“We just need to relax and let this happen,” Mr. Clinton said in Girardville, according to The Associated Press. “Nobody’s talking about wrecking the party. Everywhere I go, all these working people say: ‘Don’t you dare let her drop out. Don’t listen to those people in Washington, they don’t represent us.’ ”
On Saturday, Mr. Obama, answering a question on the subject at the news conference here, seemed to agree with Mr. Clinton.
“You know, there’s no doubt that among some of my supporters or some of her supporters, there’s probably been some irritation created,” he said. “You can’t tell me that some of my supporters are going to say, well, we’d rather have the guy who may want to stay in Iraq for a hundred years because we’re mad that Senator Clinton ran a negative ad against Senator Obama. And I think the converse is true as well.”
All the mad talk of the divided party is simply heat-of-the-moment stuff. Some may choose to avoid voting for one of the two, but that’s more likely because of a complaint on an issue or three and not the tenor of this primary campaign. And for the thin-skinned, whatever the fight game, no-one’s ever become heavyweight champ without good sparring partners.
March 30th, 2008 at 3:35 am
Michigan Ends Revote Bid…
The effort to schedule a June revote for the Michigan Democratic primary collapsed yesterday, dealin…
March 30th, 2008 at 7:32 am
a good sparring partner is good - the personal attacks aint so good. in an age where nothing gets buried — the personal attacks and bitterness will come back to haunt people. and Hillary just doesnt care about that
March 30th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
[…] “You know, there’s no doubt that among some of my supporters or some of her supporters, there’s probably been some irritation created,” he said. “You can’t tell me that some of my supporters are going to say, well, we’d rather have the guy who may want to stay in Iraq for a hundred years because we’re mad that Senator Clinton ran a negative ad against Senator Obama. And I think the converse is true as well.” - Kevin Hayden, American Street […]
March 30th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Kevin’s analysis that this divided party talk is the Heat of the moment stuff is on target. The Republicans are the party that is in turmoil. Especially with all this background of cross over votes in the Caucus states. Come on, a lot of those red state will not vote for Obama even if he was white however it does not help to be Black and have a Islamic Arabic name waving the banner of being Christian. Sheesh.
There are many delegates that are at risk here that will vote Republican at the drop of a hat in the general election; also thousands in regular vote count are something these people have to live with. Its been stated that at least four of the red states Obama won have never voted for a Democrat in forty years, let a lone vote for a Black candidate. A debate that is on Hillary’s side.
This is my first rookie year at political analysis stuff and I have no ties to anyone. However there some fundamentals that are my key points no matter what happens on Mainstream Media. Torture is my top issues to decide who I will vote for, so McCain is out, and now searching for other issues between Hillary and Obama.
Though some of times there is a sense of understanding in observing the slight change and the word mix many on cable news build in to their contextual shifting. Especially those Mr. Reverend Wright in his sermon explanations that seem to appear to be not just a five second sound bites. But for Obama not to denounce, reject and bring this Reverend in front of America in a united way for atonement in apologies for the corrosive speech is exactly showing everyone Obama’s character. It falls way short of that dream to judge a mans character by his content and not by the color of his skin. Here, Obama fails Reverend King’s basics in the development of that mutual understanding.
Moreover to parade around and claim to have a wining number of votes and the most delegates even as empty as is appears because of the likely hood of falling short in the General election is again a very severe short fall in his personal thinking and decision making. This is one that is very rejection able for me and shows me the inept general thinking in our College and University society. Here, these young people embrace Obama for mere slogan management and seem to be a trance like a deer in your head light on the highway about to be run over. Perhaps I’m wrong but if not America is in big trouble with Obama.
I have worked in Industry as long as Obama is alive and perceive that the Clintons with the hindsight of being out of the Whitehouse for eight years adds to an insight and vision that is considerable more powerful than anything Obama can bring the table. Those out there will argue, well now America will have two minds running the government. Perhaps it’s true but for the last seven years America has had the Bush family and the Bin Laden family running the country and look where we are, and it’s not good.
March 30th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Perhaps having two minds running things the next eight years will make up for no minds running things for the last eight.
I’m not terribly impressed with either candidate. I favor Clinton for some of the reasons mentioned. I’m also suspicious of Obama thanks to the Rev. Wright thing, and Obama’s general pattern of not living up to his rhetoric. Doesn’t mean I won’t vote for him in the general, though. I have to laugh when Obama supporters scold about Clinton’s meeting with Scaife and Murdoch, and utterly ignore Obama’s much closer association with Rezko, and Wright, not to mention his association with William Ayers.
Neither Clinton nor Obama is going to do much for us, but John McCain running things is absolutely unacceptable. Sometimes, you really do have to choose the lesser of two evils.