Obama Flip Flopping and other comments

Clinton Conference Call -Sunday February 17th

Howard Wolfson and Phil Singer and the Clinton people say that Obama
is flip flopping on taking public financing. He is backing away from
a specific promise. This is not the first time that he has done this
in his political life. In primaries he runs on promises and then does
not deliver on it. A reporter said that it was not a specific pledge
but the Clinton campaign quotes Bill Burton from the campaign as
saying he would. Clinton campaign quotes a Common Cause questionnaire.
They say he has broken a commitment. " here is a promise that he is
breaking right before our very eyes" Senator Clinton will assess the
situation on public financing when the situation comes. That would
have been fine for Senator Obama. He took a specific position and then
decided to renege on it. It is fair for voters to ask for someone does
not have a long history, it is fair for people to look at his
promises. Does oratory and promises deliver results?

Obama has taken money from people who work in special interests and
companies. If he is interested in not having special interests and he
still takes contributions from people that hire those lobbyists. Once
again you hear great speeches from Senator Obama that are not backed
up by the facts.

Impact on future contests-- they do not believe that momentum is the
driver of actual votes
Senator Obama had momentum and lost many of the big states. Among rank
and file Democrats people are enthusiastic. Senator Clinton would be
the nominee of a united party. We believe that we will have 2025
delegates and we will be the nominee.


Our expectation will achieve the result to put Senator Clinton on the
road to the nomination. We have asked our delegates to seat Michigan
and Florida. Over two million people voted in those elections.

Health care- facts are crystal clear- Obama has used Harriet and
Louise tactics to attack our health care plan when he leaves fifteen
million people out.

Clinton Campaign Conference Call Notes

Harold Ickes & Phil Singer from Clinton Campaign on Conference Call
Saturday February 16th, 2008


Ickes: Said he had been around Democratic Presidential politics since 1968.
Served on rules committee and by-laws—have helped manage conventions

Several points— the race tied with 45 delegates—miniscule between them—18 jurisdictions yet to vote—1075 delegates up for grabs—neither will have enough pledged—Obama needs 340 of super delegates (Ickes calls them automatic delegates—under Obama’s projection then Senator Clinton needs 480.



Both of these candidates are going to need them – the supers/automatics to nail down nomination—automatics/ supers are supposed to exercise their best judgment---The Hunt commission decided as they could best win the White House

Many ways to elected delegates and the way Texas will decide them. There are 56 states and territories that elect delegates. What the press has overlooked is that these people are closely in touch with politics events etc. They are more in touch with the political process in this country. They are not divorced from the politics of the day. They have a sense of the institutional interest of the Democratic Party.

David Axelrod is a close personal friend. Axelrod said that all (super delegates /automatics should vote what is best for the party and country. Chairman Dean said that they should exercise their best judgment. Clyburn said that the supers/automatics are not there to mirror the popular vote. That was the intention of the Hunt commission when they added the supers/automatics

Mathematically impossible to reach the delegates for either nomination without the supers/automatics

Senator Clinton is urging her delegates to vote to seat Michigan and Florida on Florida—Obama broke pledge that he would not be campaigning. He bought national ads that also went into Florida. That was prohibited by the campaign. 1.5 million people voted there. In Michigan, Obama decided to curry favor with Iowa by withdrawing from Michigan. Obama got 55 pledged delegates. 600k voted in the Michigan primary. She wants to seat the delegates. Why should Florida not be heard at the convention—why should 1.5 million voters in Florida not get to be heard?—“we are going to win this nomination” in order to get this nomination we have to go to the convention.



In the general election both Michigan and Florida are important.

Nothing can be predicted with accuracy. Pundits predicted that Clinton would lose New Hampshire.

However, we believe that she will hold her own in Wisconsin. We expect her to win in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island.


She will close the delegate gap by March 5—PA suits her candidacy and by the end of June, she will be neck and neck with Obama

Question from the press: What do you say to John Lewis?—Ickes: Reasonable people can disagree about who will fare the best in Nov. This is a political operation; the states that he has won do not turn into Democratic states in the general election. turn to dems in the

Question on from the press: Why is Hillary better? What is your argument?
Ickes: We are in the peak of the ups and downs of the race and this going to be a close general election—Hillary has carried some key swing states such as Nevada, New Mexico and she appeals to women, Hispanics and lower income voters. In Arkansas, Arizona, NM and Ohio she looms large. Obama’s base relies on swing voters that may go with McCain. Obama has not been subjected to the full weight of media examination. When the GOP turns up the heat, the polls might not reflect that.

Question from the Press: Harold, did you vote to strip the delegates? Ickes: there is no change; I was not acting as agent for Mrs. Clinton. We had made rules, Rule 20 that has automatic sanction and we stripped the delegates. Those were the rules.

Ickes: This will be settled before we get to the floor—after the 7th of June she will have the majority of the delegates. On Tad Devine, Ickes said he did not cite one shred of authority.

Question from the press? A new caucus in Michigan? Ickes: No because in 2004 only 160,000 people voted in the “firehouse primary”. Over 600k have voted already. Fight not good for party or candidate—bitter fight not good—not well served by settling this at the convention. (Note: he said the opposite above) We will compete but see no need for a revote.

Question from the press: Credentials committee? Ickes: There are 150 votes plus appointments that have already been made. There are 177 votes. There may be a challenge before June 29th but there is no meeting set up yet and there is no challenge. 153 members come from the states and are apportioned by popular vote. For instance there are 17 members in California based on statewide votes so it is possible that Clinton will control the credentials committee.

Senate Budget Committee Critiques President's Budget Proposal

In a heated exchange, the Senate Budget Committee heard testimony from OMB director Jim Nussle regarding President Bush’s FY2009 Budget Proposal. Chariman Kent Conrad (D-ND) opened the hearing with a poster reading “the debt is the threat” and continued this theme, saying the “debt is going up like a scalded cat,” described the three D’s of President Bush’s legacy as “debt, deficit, and decline,” and called the budget “a debt bomb on the next president.” He made sure to emphasize the difference between the deficit, which is the year-to-year difference between spending and revenue, and the debt, which includes all money owed to Social Security and other lenders.

The consensus was apparent that this budget is unrealistic on a number of levels. A number of social programs would face spending cuts of up to 100%, the DOD would receive less than half of the $193 billion it spent this year in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While each side of the aisle presented different complaints, they were united in opposition to the projected economic outlook if this plan is put into action. The $9 trillion debt is expected to reach $10 trillion; if the stimulus package is enacted, the 2008 deficit is expected to reach $400 billion. Ranking member Judd Gregg (R-NH) criticized the Democrats regarding Pay-Go rules and SCHIP, but gave Nussle the same treatment, criticizing the long-run usefulness of this plan.

Chairman Conrad and Senator Bernard Sanders (I-VT) were some of the most vocal and aggressive when demanding justifications for unrealistically low war spending estimates ($70 billion for 2009) and severe cuts to social programs like LIHEAP which helps low-income families heat their homes. Nussle responded with a question, asking when Congress would pay the war bills for this year.

Medicare and Medicaid was also a topic of long discussion. Nussle claimed the budget aims to limit uncontrolled growth in spending in these areas. The Committee discussed the need for reform in these areas, rather than simple spending cuts.

Senator Lautenberg (D-NJ) focused on the cuts that Amtrak would receive under the President’s plan, remarking on traffic problems across the country.

Senator Menedez (D-NJ) seemed to sum it all up when he declared the proposal “dead on arrival.”

Hillary's Plan B Problem

So as we’ve explained the Democratic caucus is an interesting affair where viability or having 15 percent of the caucus goers in support of a candidate. Without that 15 percent supporters are forced to either recruit other caucus goers or abandon their candidate and support another one. There’s a very slim chance here in Iowa that any of the second tier Democratic candidates will be overwhelmingly viable. Dennis Kucinich has already said that his supporters should caucus for Barack Obama if he proves not to be viable at their caucus. Now imagine if Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden all said that. Now, they haven’t but if the mentality of second tier candidate supporters is anti-Hillary, they might support Edwards or Obama should their candidate not prove viable. No one can foresee how much of a difference this will make, but depending on the pockets of Dodd, Richardson, Kucinich, and Biden supporters it could be large enough to land Hillary Clinton second or third overall in the state.

The effect of a spoiler third candidate in the general election can sometimes be enough to sway the race, imagine if there were three or four of them. Strategy, possible coming out of the second tier camps, will be the name of the game tonight

The Ron Paul Approach

Sure, he's a second tier candidate. No, his scrambling around today won't get him more votes of people who are teetering on the Republican side. Instead of shaking hands and kissing babies and running all over Iowa, Ron Paul is addressing a lecture hall of medical students at Des Moines University. Speaking as a doctor and a politician, Ron Paul is focusing on inflation and blames government policies for the rising cost of healthcare.

Ever a libertarian, for a reduced government Paul says, "Healthcare isn't a right. Housing isn't a right...You have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and hopefully someday you will have the right to keep what you earn." He's appealing to young people who are looking forward to the highest national debt in decades. He's appealing to older people who need expensive procedures like heart surgery or pricey prescription medications.

Paul's solution is closing down U.S. military bases abroad. The savings from running those, he proposes, will be enough to reduce the national debt. His tag line is "freedom." Free of choice, freedom of the market. He says that the Founding Fathers were right, we should stay out of foreign entanglements.

This is just another example of Paul, cool as a cucumber, staying out of the melee and doing something unexpected. Giving a lecture for students, some of whom are voting today, some who are not instead of scrambling around Iowa, vote shopping.