Obama's Manager: "Fairly or not-the majority of voters don't trust Senator Clinton" (Nat'l Journal)

[kpete]

Plouffe:I mean, I think her electability issues are the following: she's got a high unfavorable rating. It would be the highest unfavorable rating for any presidential nominee in recent history. Fairly or not, the majority of voters don't trust Senator Clinton.

Obama's Manager Discusses Clinton's Negatives & The Delegate Race
Fri. Apr. 25, 2008

National Journal's Linda Douglass sat down with David Plouffe, Barack Obama's campaign manager, for the April 25 edition of "National Journal On Air." This is a transcript of their conversation.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20080425_7012.php



snippet:

..................

Q: You've heard Hillary Clinton's advisers say that if she loses Indiana, it may well be over for her. If Barack Obama should somehow lose North Carolina, would he then have a problem?

Plouffe: Well, first of all, we assume this contest will go through June 3. We're already campaigning actively in all the contests through Montana and South Dakota. So, you know, we have no control over what Senator Clinton does or does not do. We're just going to campaign as hard as we can and get as many votes and delegates as we can. And we look at these as a body of contests. You know, I said this after March 4. There's 10 remaining contests. Some of them she'll do well in, some of them we'll do well in, but we look at it at the end of the day on June 3, where does the race stand?

Our record right now is 30 to 16 -- it's a pretty good record. Won a lot more delegates, which is the measure. That is the strategy. We built our strategy around the acquisition of delegates because that's our rules. So did Senator Clinton. This popular vote is kind of a red herring. I mean, if this was about popular vote, we would've campaigned harder in Illinois to drive up our numbers. We would have campaigned the entire 10 days before February 5 in California and New York to drive up our numbers. But what we did was campaign in a lot of states and a lot of congressional districts to try and get delegates, because that is what this is about. So, you know, they are very creative about establishing new metrics.

So we're just going to fight as hard as we can, and see where we are the morning of May 7. We'll see where we are the morning of June 4, but we don't think the fundamental structure of the campaign is changed, and we think, on electability, we have a terrific story to tell and a case to make, and we're going to make it as aggressively as we can. Because we think that Senator Obama gives the party the best chance to win the presidency and also the best chance to have good downballot atmospherics for the rest of the candidates.

Q: OK, well, thank you so much, David Plouffe, campaign manager for Barack Obama. I really appreciate your joining us, and I hope you'll come back on the program again one of these days.

Plouffe: Thanks, Linda. Have a good afternoon.

read the whole thing (interesting stuff)
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20080425_7012.php

[LakeSamish706]

1. Obama's campaign is absolutely flawless with awesome people that...

have integrity. What more can one say about them.

[thereismore]

2. This popular vote is kind of a red herring. EXACTLY! nt

[splat]

3. What would you expect his campaign manager to say? "We're screwed!'?

[bowens43]

4. Why would he say that? Obama has the nomination.

[splat]

5. Did I fall asleep and miss the convention?