From a recent emailing by David Plouffe, Obama’s Campaign Manager:
Outside groups are in the process of pouring more than $3.2 million into Iowa to support Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.
A new group, run by John Edwards’ former campaign manager, is spending nearly a million dollars of unregulated money to run a so-called “issue” ad in Iowa this week. The ad touts “the Edwards plan” and prominently features a smiling John Edwards — but the group claims it isn’t meant to promote one candidate or another.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s friends from Washington are spending millions on attacks, including a mailing that misleads voters by falsely disparaging Barack’s universal health care plan. The mailing carefully uses a quote from another candidate and mimics the design of that candidate’s mailings — apparently with the hope that Iowans offended by the negativity will think it came from someone else.
There you have it. This is unlikely to help Edwards and Clinton’s shockingly high negatives among Democratic voters: 35% and 32% “least likely to vote for,” respectively.
Hillary is accusing Obama of dirty tricks, using the technique that John Kerry perfected in 2004 of calling rival supporters and lying about where the caucus is held.
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p>Dirty tricks are part of the business, and whining about it isn’t leadership, it’s naivete. This reminds me of nothing like Deval’s petulant “why are you guys being so mean to me?” question during his debate with Reilly and Gabrieli.
…running positive ads, as in the case of Edwards, hardly meet the definition of dirty tricks. At most, they point out the absurdity of current campaign finance laws.
Obama also won’t swear off support from outside groups or 527’s in the general election, which makes his position absurd. Obama’s just whining about this as a cynical ploy.
We better pick the candidate who doesn’t know how to fight.
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p>How to turn 2008 into 2004: nominate the candidate who can’t throw a punch.
Best thing to come out of Illinois since Rex Grossman …
The Obama campaign has admitted to coordinating with their aligned PAC, Hopefund.
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p>http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
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p>It’s also quite telling that the Obama camp is grouping labor into ‘special interests’.
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p>There is nothing wrong IMO of labor unions supporting their chosen candidates as long as they are complaint with campaign finance laws.
Thats very good for her, and I say after 35 years of making change its time that she got that promotion and became assistant manager of that convenience store …
Maybe she should move to Springfield and manage a QuickyMarket.
The Obama campaign has been going negative on “outside groups” for a couple of weeks now. Never mind that these groups (AFSCME, AFT and Emily’s List)are core supporters of the Democratic Party who Obama will be asking for help if he is the nominee – so the reality is Obama is politics as usual when it comes to spinning messages.
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p>Candidates with legislative experience has been able to garner national union endorsements. Clinton has the AFT, AFSCME, Bricklayers, Letter Carriers, ATU and my union -Painters & Allied Trades. Edwards has the Carpenters, Dodd the Fire Fighters. All are national endorsements based on legislative records. Without the experience in the US Senate, Obama hasn’t built a record that has earned him any national union endorsement. So instead his campaign will whine about these Unions getting involved.
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p>And Emily’s List seems like a no brainer so why even complain about EM.
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p>It’s down to the grunt work now. To mangle a Mother Jones quote “Don’t moan – organize”