Tom Hayden offers advice to Obama

[housewolf]

The New Phase for Obama, Clinton and the Rest of Us

Obama still leads in the race for the nomination but has been damaged on core issues of character and message. Clinton still can win but only by alienating many voters the Democrats need. The peace and justice movement should be cheered by the attention to Iraq and NAFTA, and keep on pressing the candidates. Obama must get tougher without contradicting the high standards he is setting for himself. There are two lines he can pursue:

His campaign can demand immediate disclosure of the Clinton tax returns, White House and Library documents that will show where Hillary Clinton's $5 million donation came from, and whether Bill Clinton has used his influence in cases like the uranium contract with Kazakhstan for a Clinton donor who gave at least $31 million to the ex-president's charitable foundation . It is imperative for Obama to parry the Clintons on these issues while the ugly Chicago trial of Obama supporter Tony Rezko is unfolding in Chicago.

Second, those same White House records will reveal whether Clinton has lied about having lobbied internally against NAFTA as First Lady. Only biographer Carl Bernstein claims she did, but he may be referring to her concerns about the timing of the NAFTA initiative, not NAFTA itself. Obama needs to parry on this issue to offset the story out of Canada that his representative gave secret assurances to Ottawa about Obama's NAFTA proposal.

Finally, in terms of policy, it is becoming increasingly questionable whether Obama can succeed at his lofty visionary level without sharpening a principled policy difference with Clinton that really matters to voters.

more....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/the-new-phase-for-obama-_b_90325.html

[Cant trust em]

1. David Gergen has also corroborated Clinton's NAFTA opposition story

Still though, Obama's line is fine. You can't pick and choose which successes are yours and which ones you distance yourself from.

[LisaM]

2. Has Tom Hayden, now, decided to leave what Obama called

"The Tom Hayden wing of the Democratic Party"? Of course, that was back when Obama was dissing Baby Boomers. I haven't heard him marginalize Boomers so much since a few key ones endorsed him.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. Advice from an agent of the politics of change.

A third rate nobody has-been that never did a god damn thing for anybody. One can only hope that Obama is wise enough to stay away from Hayden.