BARACK OBAMA CAMPAIGN CONFERENCE CALL
SUBJECT: "THE LAUNCHING OF A NEW WEBSITE AND DISCUSSING HOW THE MCCAIN CAMPAIGN IS TAKING THE LOW ROAD"
PARTICIPANTS: DAVID PLOUFFE, OBAMA FOR AMERICA CAMPAIGN MANAGER; SUSAN EISENHOWER, PRESIDENT OF THE EISENHOWER GROUP, INC., THE GRANDDAUGHTER OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT
The comments presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made about his race in Union, Missouri on Wednesday--was not the first time Obama talked about his expectation that the Republicans will use race to detail his candidacy.
Last June at a Florida fund-raiser Obama--the first African American to have a viable chance of becoming president--said the GOP will go after him because he is black.
Obama said then, "The choice is clear. Most of all we can choose between hope and fear. It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy. We know what kind of campaign they're going to run. They're going to try to make you afraid. They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?"
The latest explosive injection of race into the presidential race came Thursday, when McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis said "Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."
Presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Az.)--who campaigned in Racine, Wisc. on Thursday was asked by CNN's John King if Davis was making a fair criticism about Obama playing the race card. "It is," said McCain. "I'm sorry to say that it is. it's legitimate."
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe in a conference call with Susan Eisenhower said McCain will find this strategy counter productive.
McCain at the Racine Civic Center excerpt, courtesy Federal News Service.
"And my friends, Senator Obama is an impressive speaker, and the beauty of his words has attracted many people, especially among the young, to his campaign. I applaud his talent and his success, and all Americans should be proud of his accomplishment. My concern with Senator Obama is that on issues big and small, what he says and what he does are often two different things. And he doesn't seem to understand --
And he doesn't seem to understand that the policies he's offers -- that he offers would make our problems make much worse and not better."
Paris Hilton jumped into the political news on Wednesday when her image was used by the McCain campaign in an ad mocking the celebrity of presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
But this was not the first time Hilton was injected into political discourse.
Obama himself mentioned her during his routine before the winter Gridiron dinner in 2004, just after he was elected to the Senate. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) used her name to make a point about Scooter Libby getting clemency from President Bush in July, 2007.
"Even Paris Hilton had to go to jail. No one in this Administration should be above the law," Durbin said.
In 2004 Obama riffed about his celebrity at the Gridiron, saying everything changed for him after he keynoted the Democratic convention earlier that year.
"It's like I was shot out of a cannon. I am so overexposed, I make Paris Hilton look like a recluse. "After all the attention -- People magazine, GQ, Vanity Fair, Letterman -- I figure there's nowhere to go from here but down. So tonight, I announce my retirement from the United States Senate. I had a good run."
Of course, all the hype, said Obama, generates wacky tabloid coverage." And with that he hoisted a poster, a mock cover of the National Enquirer with the headline: Obama's shocking secret. He's Strom Thurmond's love child."
Obama said he was not letting all the attention go to his head. He joked that he was hanging out with Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson at a Los Angeles restaurant when Barbra Steisand called him on his cell phone. And he counseled her, you can't just get caught up in the hype."
The Democratic National Committee buttresses the Obama campaign spotlight on McCain negative campaign tactics.
From the McCain campaign......
"If there is a low road, Barack Obama's campaign paved it, because they launched the first negative attack ad in this election. Pointing to your opponents worldwide celebrity and serious lack of experience is not the 'low road' - sorry that's a serious stretch." ---Tucker Bounds, spokesman
The Obama campaign is hitting McCain for taking the "low road" --not his oft quoted "straight talk"--in a new "low road express" website launched on Thursday.
Lois Romano of the Washington Post has this must read about Patti Solis Doyle, the Chicago native fired as Clinton's campaign manager, now in the Obama campaign as the chief of staff to whoever will be Obama's running mate.
headline: After a Spectacular Political Failure, the Former Top Aide To Clinton Makes Herself at Home in Obama's Camp
the lede: Patti Solis Doyle has come home to get her house in order and her reputation back. It has not been a good year.
The "Vote Both" drive--staffed by loyal former Clinton staffers--folds, realizing that booking Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to be a keynote speaker at the Democratic convention means she is not on the list to be Obama's running mate.
from "Vote Both"
Because of your work, Senator Obama asked Hillary to be his keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention! We hope you are as pleased as we are that he has tapped Senator Clinton to deliver one of the most important messages of that crucial week--the very role that Barack Obama had four years ago.
Regretfully, this means that Senator Hillary Clinton is no longer under consideration as Senator Obama's running mate.
The McCain "celeb" ad using the images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to portray presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as an elite and tax hiker was the peg Thursday morning for a face off on NBC's "Today" show between Obama campaign strategist Robert Gibbs and McCain campaign spokesman Nicolle Wallace.
The spot, out Wednesday, mocks Obama's popularity: "He's the biggest celebrity in the world" and then shows pictures of the two celebs who have gotten into various jams.
That McCain spot followed the "Berlin" video produced by the Republican National Committee--they hired a crew to tape at the Berlin speech--featuring Germans gushing over Obama in ways calculated to turn off U.S. voters.
Matt Lauer asked Wallace to defend the the "celeb" spot because Hilton and Spears are "the punchline of jokes" and "that's demeaning."
Replied Wallace, "I don't think we are making a joke of Sen. Obama and neither were the 200,000 Germans who were there to celebrate his celebrity.
"We are going to focus over the next 90 some odd days talking about the issues where I think we are very much in line with what the American people want and expect from our next president.
"But no one can forget or overlook or obscure the fact that Barack Obama is the celebrity in this contest and Sen. McCain, an American hero, is the underdog We are comfortable with that position, we embrace that position."
At his turn Gibbs said, "I think of what you see is people that are excited about the possibility of change in this country.
"You know John McCain is an honorable man, Matt, who is running an increasingly dishonorable campaign as independent observers have said is false and baseless. The McCain campaign has very clearly decided that the only way to win this election is to become very personal and very negative."
CHICAGO--With 99 days until election day, and an overseas swing out of the way, Barack Obama's campaign has some big items on the "to do" list.
"It really is a sprint at this point," said Obama senior adviser Anita Dunn on Monday.
Top items:
• Select a vice presidential running mate. While the selection team is narrowing the choices to present to Obama -- Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was the latest buzz on Politico.com -- a team at the Chicago headquarters is getting ready for the rollout. The newly minted vice presidential hopeful will find waiting for him or her a chief of staff, Patti Solis Doyle; an advance team; press spokesman, scheduler and plane.
• Gameplan the Denver Democratic nominating convention. Obama's Aug. 28 acceptance speech at Invesco Field is in place, but the other elements have to be finalized such as the platform, other speakers and Obama's "grand entrance" in the run up to Denver. "All of that is being worked out now," said Obama top adviser Valerie Jarrett on Monday.
An item I posted July 25 about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) canceling a visit to a U.S. military base in Germany has now become grist for the Republicans to attack Obama.
Some points:
*Contrary to what the Republican National Committee stated in one of their missives, Obama senior strategist David Axelrod never said that the Pentagon told the campaign Obama should not come to the base. The GOP, citing my blog post, wrote in one of their releases, "Obama Senior Strategist David Axelrod Said The Pentagon Told The Campaign That Barack Obama "Should Not Come."
*The headline on my original post were my words--not Axelrod's. That headline "Pentagon tells Obama not to visit U.S. troops at German base because it would be too political" was my take.
I revised the headline a few hours later because it was wrong. The Pentagon never told Obama not to come. The issue was whether Obama campaign military advisor Scott Gration, a retired Air Force General, could accompany Obama. I also rewrote a paragraph to eliminate an Axelrod quote that I misunderstood.
The new headline on my post read "Pentagon tells Obama aide a visit to U.S. base in Germany would be seen as political." I thought that new headline and revised paragraph solved the problem; usually there is just one URL for a blog post. But due to a server glitch at the Sun-Times, both the original and updated versions existed on the Internet. The Republicans have been linking to the original post and not the updated version.
CHICAGO--Michelle Obama said yes Monday she is looking forward to a family vacation in Hawaii when she had a few words with reporters after her speech at an Obama funder raiser targeted to women. Credit the Honolulu Star Bulletin for its July scoop that presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will visit Hawaii next month. In my July 21 blog post on this Hawaii homecoming, I note that this swing will be part of a "bio tour" in the run up to the Denver convention.
CHICAGO---The first invoice is in for the Obama overseas trip, $7,930.45 for airfare, and that's not counting Friday flights from Berlin to Paris to London. Also still to come are bills for food, buses, file centers, internet, hotels, baggage transfers, etc.
Air Charter Team
Air Charter Team Offsets Carbon So You Fly Green
10015 N.W. Ambassador Drive, Suite 202
Kansas City, MO 64153
RECEIPT
Date: 7/28/2008
Invoice # OFP45804
Bill To:
lynn sweet (for Lynn Sweet)
1206 National Press Building
Washington, DC 20045
DESCRIPTION AMOUNT
Obama For President Press Billing - Invoice: OFP45804
Jul 20 2008 Flight: MDW - EINN $3107.81 (midway airport/chicago-shannon/don't know if this also covers shannon-amman flight.)
Jul 22 2008 Flight: AMM - TLV $286.20 (amman- tel aviv)
Jul 24 2008 Flight: TLV - TXL $1414.33 (tel aviv-berlin)
Jul 26 2008 Flight: LHR - MDW $3122.11 (london-midway airport/chicago)
CHICAGO--Here's the who's who seated at Michelle Obama's table at a Monday's "Women for Obama" fund-raising lunch at the Palmer House here.
At Michelle's table:
Keynote speaker Alice Waters, who is the queen of Calfornia cuisine and healthy eating; she owns famous restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley. "Much better cook than I am a speaker," she said as she started her talk.
Waters is making a pitch for "slow food," "real food" in contrast to fast food. She said she recently saw a bumper sticker that said "If you are what you eat, then I'm fast, cheap and easy."
Michelle's mother, Marian Robinson
Mrs. Robinson friend Kaye Wilson, godmother to Obama daughters.
Attorney Tina Tchen
Obama's Women Vote chief Becky Carroll
Former Clinton "Hillraiser" Missy Lavender, who runs the Womens Health Foundation in Chicago.
Valerie Jarrett, top Obama advisor
Obama senior advisor Anita Dunn
DNC womens outreach Mame Reilly
CHICAGO---Presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) taped an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" on Saturday before returning to the U.S. from a Middle East and European swing. The interview underscored what Obama has been saying during the trip: What he saw in Afghanistan and Iraq and what he heard from world leaders will not cause any policy shifts in his campaign.
Obama was asked by host Tom Brokaw on the show, broadcast Sunday, "When you get home and Michelle says to you, "Barack, what did you learn that surprised you? And did you change your mind about anything based on this entire trip?"
Obama replied, " Well, I, I, I didn't see a huge shift in the strategic policies that I've laid out throughout this campaign."
CHICAGO-Presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)
campaign plane landed at about 830 pm on Saturday, at Midway Airport, returning from
London, the last leg of a swing to the Middle East and Europe.
