Obama To Attack Clintons on Whitewater, Cattle Futures, Campaign Fundraising, Lewinsky???

[BobbyVan]

Pay special attention to Plouffe's comment at the end. It's no different than Mark Penn saying the word "cocaine" then saying that Clinton's campaign was not making Obama's drug use an issue.

Today's Washington Post:

In the two weeks leading up to the Indiana primary, a Democratic strategist familiar with the Obama campaign said aides are likely to turn to the controversies of Bill Clinton's White House years -- Hillary Clinton's trading cattle futures, Whitewater and possibly impeachment.

"Everyone knows the history of the Clintons," the strategist said.

Plouffe would not say the campaign planned to address that period, but seemed open to the possibility in the future: "The Republicans certainly are going to look at those issues, the Clinton finances, the record issues. We have chosen not to go there."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/22/AR2008042203424_pf.html

[tekisui]

1. Makes as much sense as Ayers, Wright, flag pins and rezko.

But he doesn't need to do it.

[OzarkDem]

2. That's going to backfire

and I hope Clinton then focuses on going after Bush and McCain.

[marshall]

10. It would be interesting to see them switch to each other's tactics

If Obama were to go nasty like Hillary and Hillary were to talk about the issues like Obama it would create something for the talking heads to focus on.

[Yurovsky]

16. Well it would be nice to see her attack the bad guys for a change

instead of attacking the certain Democratic nominee for President of the United States, Senator Barack Obama.

Senator Obama will need all the help he can get in countering the GOP slime machine, and I can think of no one better to put in charge of the attacks (and counterattacks) than HRC. Let her do the dirty work, and the future POTUS can stay above the fray, looking, acting, and sounding, well, err, Presidential.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

3. Bullcrap.

Obama has never used that kind of cheap attacks (unlike Hillary) and there's no reason for him to start now. Hillary now needs 70% of all remaining pledged delegates just to tie Obama. She is done.

[KittyWampus]

9. IMO, this is crap floated by CLINTON trying to whip up some sympathy.

[BobbyVan]

19. Look at Plouffe's quote!

Plouffe: "The Republicans certainly are going to look at those issues, the Clinton finances, the record issues. We have chosen not to go there."

He's already using those issues against the Clintons, saying that the Republicans will bring it up. I predict that is how they play it -- mention the issues and then say, "we aren't pushing them, but others will".

It's no different than Mark Penn mentioning Obama and drug use, but then saying, "our campaign isn't making that an issue."

[FlaGranny]

37. Obama taking cues from Clinton?

I really don't like that. If he does it to her I won't like it any more than she doing it to him, but HELL, she sure deserves it.

[KittyWampus]

38. Clinton finances are CURRENT. Opening post talks about Whitewater etc

[BayouBengal07]

4. Ewwww

I'm an Obama supporter but that would leave a really bad taste in my mouth. Bill isn't running this time.

That's sinking to the bottom with Hillary.

Please, don't go there.

[BobbyVan]

26. You went there when you talked about a "bad taste in your mouth"

:rofl:

[NJmaverick]

5. I really hope, that Hillary will drop out and it doesn't come to this

[KittyWampus]

6. that is a steaming pile. I don't believe it. There's RECENT filth on both Clintons to use.

[BeyondGeography]

7. I doubt it

it's a warning flare to the Clintons, nothing more.

[mmonk]

43. Yep. That's what it was.

[ErinBerin84]

8. I doubt they would go there

If they were to go after the Clintons, they would not drudge up the 90s. There are more current things to go after her on.

[rocktivity]

11. A "Democratic strategist FAMILIAR with the Obama campaign "?

For all we know, the strategist works for the Clinton campaign! I mean, couldn't any of us DUers rightfully identify themselves as strategist familiar with the Obama campaign?

:boring:
rocknation

[shadowknows69]

13. That is a pretty sad source

[BobbyVan]

36. look at what plouffe said

[shadowknows69]

12. I take that as a warning to Hillary

To do the right thing and help unite the party. She's the one that's been playing in the gutter, I don't think she wants to Obama to get in there and tussle on equal low ground. He's a Chicago street fighter, my money's on him. That and Hillary's "experience" really just means a decade more skeletons in her closet.

[Medusa]

14. The Clintons began it. Let Obama show them how it's really done

and begin firing with both barrels. Hillary ought to understand that strategy, gun affeciando that she is.

[MyNameGoesHere]

15. Please. PLEASE bring up Bill's impeachment. PLEASE!

I think that if the candidate for unity, change, and all that happy horse shit brings this up he will win in a landslide. Please I beg of all Obama supporters to please let him know that he should bring up Bill Clinton's impeachment.

[merh]

32. well hell, the goddess of peace wants to obliterate an entire people

and Obama does unite, hillary and her petty supporters are the dividers. Do you need a mirror?

[MyNameGoesHere]

49. And Obama does unite?

"hillary and her petty supporters are the dividers. Do you need a mirror?" So please show me the unity in that statement, you supporter of the candidate that espouses unity, change and all the happy horse poo?

[merh]

53. You must confuse your rhetoric with reason.

Responding to the divisive attacks, the negative attacks, the petty bullshit is not being a uniter, it is being a candidate. What, do you think he should stand there and take your crap or her crap? She throws the shit, he doesn't have to take it and throwing it back is oft the necessary response.

Unity would be a much easier thing to realize if Hillary would stop with the negative distortions that divide the party. Of course now, she is the negative war monger that wants to blow up an entire people, obliterate them - she divides the party and the world, it's us against them, you are either with us or against us.

News for you, being against hiller is now, more than ever, being for the party and the nation and against the negatives, the neo-cons, those that would continue dragging our nation into hell.

[MyNameGoesHere]

55. Well i guess

i should congratulate on being a fine and shining example of unity, change, fear mongering,<come on she said she would retaliate>, and all that happy horse poo that your candidate espouses but does not practice. See when it comes down to it he will act like the average politician and sink to lows you can't imagine. He is not a god, or a uniter, or a agent of change, HE IS A POLITICIAN. Just like my candidate. The only difference is i had no delusions about her. I knew who she was and i knew who your candidate was deep inside. So yeah it's the hypocrisy.

[merh]

57. LOL - you hillary supporters are funny

You can call folks names, you can accuse folks of being divisive, negative, blah, blah blah and when they respond to you and tell you that you are mistaken, when they dare to challenge your distortions, they are the ones causing the problems. Here's a clue - if you would stop the shit, deal with the issues and stop promoting the negatives, no one would need to tell you how wrong you are, how full of shit you are. Same goes for hillary's campaign - responding to the negatives is not attacking, it is responding. Responding is not being divisive, attacking is being divisive.

My home town movie theater is looking to employ someone and you appear to be perfect for the job

They need a projectionist.

:eyes:

[blogslut]

17. Horseshit

Democratic strategist familiar with the Obama campaign

What does that even mean? James Carville and Mark Penn are familiar with the Obama campaign.

More gossip from the trail.

[BobbyVan]

20. Again, look at what Plouffe said!

Plouffe: "The Republicans certainly are going to look at those issues, the Clinton finances, the record issues. We have chosen not to go there."

He's already using those issues against the Clintons, saying that the Republicans will bring it up. I predict that is how they play it -- mention the issues and then say, "we aren't pushing them, but others will".

It's no different than Mark Penn mentioning Obama and drug use, but then saying, "our campaign isn't making that an issue."

[blogslut]

23. Sorry

Not the same at all. Plouffe was responding to the question. Notice how he did not go into detail?

The democratic strategist is probably someone like one of those I mentioned above.

[BobbyVan]

24. Yes it is

Plouffe said the Clinton scandal issues were important (the GOP will raise them in the fall), but then said the Obama campaign was not pushing them. You can't have it both ways.

[flyarm]

18. and it will backfire on Obama big time..remember the Clintons left office with a 67% approval

and as long as Obama beats up on Clintons..the white working class will come out in droves for the Clintons..

Remember also that Bill Clinton is the first dems to win two terms in like 30 years..he is still the leader of the Dem party.

Keep it up Obamabrats..you are killing off your candidate and he will do it to himself as well by these tactics!

stop whinning and grow some gonads!

fly

[Adelante]

22. The Clinton camp are the ones who keep harping on what Repukes will say in the GE

In their mutual Fear Everything Campaign. This is what Republicans will say if the nominee is Hillary. And more.

[BayouBengal07]

21. Maybe it's just something they felt they had to bring up

With all the talk of Obama's "unelectability" due to recent "scandals" like bittergate, Wright, etc., maybe something needed to be said to remind everyone of Clinton's negatives and unelectability. They're still there.

At least I hope that's what that was, laying it out in the media and nothing more. If it becomes a full blown campaign strategy it could hurt him.

[leaningprog]

25. Don't smear along with the caca Clintons

I would like to see a simple question put to Bill and Hillary.
Do you have money in the Cayman Islands sheltered from US taxes?

It is my hunch they do. It would be interesting to see how
they would resolve the white working class hero shtick with
sitting on $100+ million and still having to hide a bit for
the pure joy of stolen sweets.

The Clintons have always counted on their party overlooking
what kind of people they are in return for having a set of
candidates who will win at any cost and who are shameless.
The next time Hillary runs, her own party will destroy her
candidacy before it gets off the ground.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

27. Two legs good, four legs bad!!!

Four legs good, two legs bad!!!
Two legs good, four legs bad!!!

[susankh4]

28. Bring it on, I say....

it only makes her stronger.

[Coexist]

29. he doesn't need to do it publicly, just to the SDs in private.

[hayu_lol]

30. All the 'old' issues in this thread title...

being brought back to life at this time, just show how low the Obama supporters can really go.

Ken Starr, a cast of thousands including the best of the FBI, 100 million dollars, and the full budget of Richard Mellon Scaife got nowhere with any of these allegations against the Clintons. A few individuals went to prison because they wouldn't lie for Ken Starr.

How quickly some people forget how good for most of us the Clinton years were--despite being hunted down by crackpots from day one of their Presidency.

[Coexist]

33. I owe the Clinton's nothing - I spent years defending them.

We are even. Now she is campaigning like Karl Rove - and I don't even owe her my respect anymore.

[stillcool]

34. There's no reason..

anyone has to go back that far. Campaign contributions, and fundraising involving the SEC, and FEC should do the trick...

[PVnRT]

58. Well, if the argument against Obama is that they'll bring up

"all this stuff" in the general election, why is it wrong to argue that the same won't happen to Clinton?

I wouldn't like it either, but at this point, it's clear by the way Hillary has campaigned that anything is permissable.

[crispini]

47. Now THAT is a very good point.

If he's got some more SD's in his pocket I hope he ratchets up the stream of endorsements a LOT in the next two weeks.

[stillcool]

31. I'd just stick to the campaign ..

contributions and fund-raising. A who's who of white collar criminals.

[bigtree]

35. The Obama campaign said this before. They want to use the republican campaign

which was used in an attempt to STEAL THE VOTES WE CAST FOR OUR TWO-TERM DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT over a petty lie which was prompted by an out-of-control, right-wing prosecutor who had FAILED to find anything more than a busted land deal in Arkansas where the Clintons had LOST MONEY and used Paula Jones' discredited lawsuit to find something to soften-up our Democratic president for his republican benefactors' hijacking of our Democratic votes in their trumped-up impeachment.

If the Obama camp doesn't recognize the betrayal of those Democrats whose votes were threatened by the republican's impeachment attempt and use that campaign to gain some political advantage now, they are no better than the democracy stealing cretins we fought so valiantly all of those years ago.

[Adelante]

39. Denied

Not mentioning Whitewater

On the call, Plouffe is asked about a "strategist' quoted in the Washington Post saying Obama's campaign will hit Clinton scandals from the 1990s and before.

In his response, the campaign manager gives a sense of how little he likes leaks (which he's been very good at containing.)

"Whoever was, in an act of puffery, suggesting they have some knowledge of what we’re doing is incorrect," he said. "We have not talked about these issues during the campaign and we won’t."

ALSO: Some sarcasm on Clinton's fundraising : "I guess they can now begin to pay off some of their vendors," which he said "their vendors will be pleased about."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Not_mentioning_Whitewater.html

[BobbyVan]

40. Just like Shrub left the "swift boating" to others, right?

[Adelante]

44. Think what you want, I don't really give a shit

:shrug:

[snooper2]

59. talk about a run-on sentence...

:rofl:

:rofl:

[slinkerwink]

41. Plouffe at TPM says they're not going there

[BobbyVan]

48. The Obama campaign proper won't, but you can bet that Obama "supporters" will be pushing them

And Obama & Company won't lift a finger to stop them.

[MadBadger]

42. The Obama campaign today said they will NOT use any of this.

[crispini]

46. It's their call, obviously, but I begin to wonder if perhaps he should.

I mean, she's been dogging him on stuff that was printed in -- his church bulletin! Quel Horreur! :sarcasm:

[DemGa]

45. Why not? They've went RW from the start - though they pretend otherwise

[anonymous171]

50. BAD IDEA! BAD IDEA! Many old democrats have a "defend the Clintons" reflex.

It would TOTALLY backfire.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

51. Is that the smell of desperation and fear coming from the "Hope and Change" and No Fear candidate?!

[BobbyVan]

52. Plouffe is denying.. but of course, he's got everyone else talking cattle futures and Lewinsky today

Operation successful.

[golddigger]

60. They won't admit it, but yes to your question...lol

[marlakay]

54. i heard hillary is going to go real negative

even more so the next two weeks and i bet this was a warning to her, go there and so will we. they won't start it...but if she does........

[Straight Shooter]

56. Hahahaha! Old psychological trick.

Don't think of an elephant, don't think of an elephant!