Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to full contact politics. In this corner, we have Hillary "I'm not sorry for my vote" Clinton. Clinton (N.Y.) voted for the October 2002 resolution authorizing the Iraq war and refuses to say she is sorry for that vote. She is the wife of Bubba and now wants a phased redeployment to bring back our troops from Iraq.
In the other corner, we have Barack "The Kid" Obama. Senator Obama (Ill.), then a state senator, publicly opposed the war. He's a fresh new face, a media darling, and has been described as "The most liberal member of Congress running for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination."
So get your talking points ready, and come out swinging!
Clinton, Obama Camps Spar on War
A brewing argument over Iraq between the presidential campaigns of Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama broke into public view here Monday night when Clinton's chief strategist challenged Obama's credentials as a consistent opponent of the war.
Mark Penn and Obama strategist David Axelrod engaged in a pointed and occasionally heated exchange during a public forum at Harvard University over the issue that has become the central point of dispute between the two leading candidates for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
Clinton (N.Y.) voted for the October 2002 resolution authorizing the Iraq war, while Obama (Ill.), then a state senator, publicly opposed the war. The exchange marked the most substantive clash to date between the Obama and Clinton campaigns and reflected frustration among Clinton advisers over the Illinois senator's use of the issue to distinguish his candidacy.
Penn, responding to a question about Clinton's vote for the resolution, used the opportunity to attack Obama, arguing that he had said in 2004 that he was not sure whether he would have voted against the resolution had he been in the Senate.
"Obama said he didn't know exactly how he would have voted in Congress because he didn't have the full intelligence," Penn said.
---snip---
Axelrod continued to question Penn's recounting of events and his decision to attack Obama. "I did not comment on Senator Clinton's decision in 2002," he said. "You found it necessary to draw Senator Obama into this discussion. Are we going to spend 10 months savaging each other, or are we going to try to lift this country up?"
Penn shot back: "Are we going to look at everybody's record, everybody's votes, tell everyone out there the truth about who supported what, who voted for what, or are we going to selectively tell people?"
MEOW...SCRATCH...GROWL!
Related:
Political video smackdown
'Hillary 1984': Unauthorized Internet ad for Obama converts Apple Computer's '84 Super Bowl spot into a generational howl against Clinton's presidential bid
It may be the most stunning and creative attack ad yet for a 2008 presidential candidate -- one experts say could represent a watershed moment in 21st century media and political advertising.
Yet the groundbreaking 74-second pitch for Democratic Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, which remixes the classic "1984" ad that introduced Apple computers to the world, is not on cable or network TV, but on the Internet.
(To see the video, go to: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo)
And Obama's campaign says it had absolutely nothing to do with the video that attacks one of his principal Democratic rivals, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Indeed, the ad's creator is a mystery, at least for now.
Cross posted from The Katrinacrat Blog