Obama Reponds to Clinton Vice-Presidental Chatter
And he responded in just about the best possible (and worst for her) fashion.
Not only did he do the ‘…but I’m in first place’ line, but he also asked why Clinton would want him as veep if she feels he’s inexperienced:
Now, they have been spending the last two, three weeks — you remember that advertisement with the phone call, telling everybody, getting all the generals to say well we’re not sure he’s ready, “I’m ready on day one, he may not be ready yet.”
But I don’t understand. If I’m not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president? Do you understand that?
TPM Election Central has the full transcript, as well as the video, which I’m posting below. It’s worth a watch - the man is good.
In other news: Oh, Spitzy…
Update: The Swamp is reporting that Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson has told reporters that Clinton views Obama as unqualified to be veep:
Later, Wolfson added that what Clinton views as Obama’s failure to pass that test would disqualify him as a vice presidential pick, since a vice president must be prepared to step into the presidency at a moment’s notice.
“Sen. Clinton will not choose any candidate who has not at the time of choosing passed the national security threshold, period,” Wolfson said.
But, he added, she wouldn’t rule it out if Obama picks up enough readiness between now and the Convention.
To recap:
Hillary Clinton, 5 March: a joint ticket ‘may be where this headed.’
Bill Clinton, 8 March: a Clinton-Obama ticket would be ‘an almost unstoppable force.’
Barack Obama, 10 March: If I’m so unqualified, why do you want me as veep?
Howard Wolfson, 10 March: Obama is unqualified and is not being considered. (Unless, of course, he crests some undefined readiness threshold in the next four-odd months.)
What? If everyone from the Clinton camp could just stop talking and take a day to regroup that’d be awesome.
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March 11th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Damn. He is good. Plays it just right. Even his pauses/stumbles/hesitations are brilliant. Makes him look off-the-cuff, humble, sincerely confused and trying to make sense of it whilst remaining superbly articulate and so forcing people to come to same conclusion as him. Not to mention use of colloquial expressions etc. I’m impressed. And obviously a huge nerd.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Yep. Someone’s going to do a great paper on him for Strategic Political Comm some day.
Argh! Why didn’t Wolfson say, “Well, of course, we’re considering Senator Obama for the vice-presidency. He is a skilled communicator and clearly good at mobilizing voters. We’re concerned that he lacks the preparedness to be president, but if that changes by August, he would be a strong addition to a Clinton-led ticket.’
All I do is watch The West Wing and I know that’s a better answer than to directly contradict your candidate and her main surrogate!
March 11th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Maybe Hillary wants Obama to respond this way in the event that she gets the nomination she’ll have an out for not selecting him as Veep since he is effectively turning her down here and consensus would be that she needs him for the ticket.
March 12th, 2008 at 7:59 am
That could very well be the case. I’m surprised, then, that Bill Clinton would have come out so strongly in favor of the joint ticket.
I think that would have been easy enough to turn down anyway, though. Two Senator tickets rarely end well (see 2004). She’d be better off picking a governor.
Interesting thought though - we’ll have to see how it plays out…