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WISCONSIN CLINTON AD: OBAMA PREFERS "SPEECHES" TO QUESTIONS.
Yesterday Ezra wondered why people weren't talking more about Barack Obama's seeming aversion to taking questions, whether at his rallies or by agreeing to more debates. Today the Clinton campaign jumps on him with the same criticism. In a new attack ad airing in Wisconsin, a narrator says over anxiety-producing music, "Maybe he'd prefer to give speeches than have to answer questions -- like why Hilary Clinton has the only health care plan that covers every American, and the only economic plan that freezes foreclosures."
The latest polls show Obama pulling ahead in Wisconsin by between 4 and 10 points. Will this ad hurt him? Refusing to debate here in the Beltway region didn't affect him at all.
--Dana Goldstein
COMMENTS (14)
I can tell you this much, refusing to debate her on Fox didn't hurt him in my opinion...
Posted by: David | February 13, 2008 12:33 PM
Except, it should be noted that both Clinton's and Ezra's criticism is bull. The only time Obama has stopped doing Q&A/town halls was the period between right before South Carolina and Super Tuesday. He did it because of travel needs. He did town halls and Q&A before then, and he has resumed doing them.
Posted by: Jennifer | February 13, 2008 12:34 PM
Isn't it better to ask how anyone can credibly issue that criticism when his campaign schedule has been littered with Q&A sessions and town halls since Super Tuesday?
Posted by: 32_footsteps | February 13, 2008 12:35 PM
Isn't he doing town hall style meetings in Wisconsin? If so then this ad rings pretty hollow.
Posted by: Callimaco | February 13, 2008 12:40 PM
Gotta agree with other commenters. He did a number of Q&A sessions leading up to yesterday. And plans to do more this week in Wisconsin.
Posted by: drill | February 13, 2008 12:42 PM
Weak tea. This is classic whining by someone behind in the polls and in cash- ask for a ton of debates for free media, and then whine when you don't get it. It looks week.
Hillary's better attacks are experience and health care. If those aren't working, time to pack it in.
Posted by: eponymous coward | February 13, 2008 1:04 PM
By "seeming" I take it you mean "not actually true"? Geez, bad enough that Ezra repeats the storyline w/o minor research, worse that he doesn't add a correction; don't add to it by repeating it.
Posted by: Katherine | February 13, 2008 1:18 PM
Re. "CHANGE".... I am worried we all will be sleeping under bridges!!!!!
Posted by: John | February 13, 2008 1:37 PM
I wonder why bananas are blue.
What's that you say? Bananas AREN'T blue? That means all my speculation about the meaning of blue bananas is based on a faulty premise. Sorry to waste everbody's time talking about blue bananas. I didn't have my facts straight and made an ass out of myself.
Posted by: joejoejoe | February 13, 2008 1:40 PM
Calling someone too chicken to debate has never worked. Humphrey tried that on Nixon in 1968 and we all know how that came out. Evita is done for; she just doesn't recognize it yet.
Posted by: Traven | February 13, 2008 3:38 PM
"refusing to debate her on Fox didn't hurt him in my opinion..."
Boy, some people have awfully short memories! Remember when the Dems first boycotted Fox and refused to debate on Fox? It was EDWARDS who first signed onto that boycott. And even tho Obama was the victim of some of the famous Fox bs, Obama dragged his feet, hid, waited to see how the wind blew before voting "present" and joining the others after they'd already deep-sixed the Fox debates. That was when I first knew he was no leader.
Posted by: Zee | February 13, 2008 5:17 PM
Zee:
I wasn't referencing that one (good for Edwards!), I meant this one:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/05/clinton-accepts-fox-news-_n_85111.html
Posted by: David | February 13, 2008 5:22 PM
Ummm...didn't they have like, 18 debates already?
Posted by: Luv | February 13, 2008 5:58 PM
Obama’s efforts to connect to the Republican Party, specifically Bush, and Dick Chaney, of the Halliburton Company, dates back to the Presidents Grandfather, Prescott Bush, and indeed Chaney was once an executive officer of Halliburton.
The American military pounds Iraq with Artillary, bombs, and the like, destroying large sections of cities, and infra-structures, then Halliburton comes in to rebuild. Halliburton and Halliburton associated companies have raked in ten’s of billions.
Obama is just like the BIG HALIBURTAN. Haliburton has contracted to build detention centers in the U.S. similiar to the one in Quantanammo Bay, Cuba. Halliburton does nothing to earn the Two Dollars for each meal an American Serviceman in Iraq eats.
http://www.associatedcontent.c…..ong…
Halliburton was scheduled to take control of the Dubai Ports in The United Arab Emiirate. The deal was canceled when Bush was unable to affect the transfer of the American Ports.
Now we see what some might suspect as similiar financial escapading from the Democrats.
Two years ago, Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity gave a $50 million contract to a start-up security company - Companion- owned by now-indicted businessman (TONY REZKO) Tony Rezko and a onetime Chicago cop, Daniel T. Frawley, to train Iraqi power-plant guards in the United States. An Iraqi leadership change left the deal in limbo. Now the company, Companion Security, is working to revive its contract.
Involved along with Antoin “Tony” Rezco, long time friend and neighbor of Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, and former cop Daniel T. Frawley, is Aiham Alsammarae. Alsammarae was accused of financial corruption by Iraqi authorities and jailed in Iraq last year before escaping and returning here.
Obama should be vetted and disclose his connection to the criminal money generating underworld. Besides, his connections to the REZCO MAFIA types, his up-coming tax fraud charges — Obama needs to disclose why he is a Muslim and stop suppoting our intervention in IRAQ. It’s time to shove an introduction to this fake rip-off Obama and invite the thief pipsqueke to meet the Waukesheake Police Department.
Posted by: Janet Reno | February 19, 2008 8:19 PM