This is Senator Obama’s best retort ever to Senator Clinton’s “he won’t be ready on day one” argument. In fact, it blows it all to hell. She’s boxed herself in and there’s no way out of this. Plus her management abilities have been called into question in a just-published N.Y. Times story. A one-two punch by any standard or yardstick.
In a speech today in Mississippi, Obama said, “With all due respect…with all due respect…I’ve won twice as many states as Senator Clinton, I’ve won more of the popular vote than Senator Clinton, I’ve more delegates than Senator Clinton…so I don’t know how somebody who’s in second place is offering the vice-presidency to someone who’s in first place. So that’s point #1.
“Point # 2 is that Senator Bill Clinton, back in 1992, said the only criteria…the most important criteria for vice-president..is that that person, if [he] fell out in the first week, is that he or she would be ready to be commander in chief. That was his criteria. [But Senator Clinton’s campaign has] been saying for the past two or three weeks…you remember that advertisement with the phone call ad, we’re not sure he’s ready, I’ll be ready on day one but he may not be ready…but if I’m not ready, how is it that [Senator Clinton] thinks I should be vice-president?”
Plus Adam Nagourney, Patrick Healy and Kate Zernike‘s N.Y. Times story calls Clinton’s leadership and management abilities, into question, to wit:
“Interviews with campaign aides, associates and friends suggest that Mrs. Clinton, at least until February, was a detached manager. Juggling the demands of being a candidate, she paid little attention to detail, delegated decisions large and small and deferred to advisers on critical questions. Mrs. Clinton accepted or seemed unaware of the intense factionalism and feuding that often paralyzed her campaign and that prevented her aides from reaching consensus on basic questions like what states to fight in and how to go after Mr. Obama, of Illinois.
“Mrs. Clinton showed a tendency toward an insular management style, relying on a coterie of aides who have worked for her for years, her aides and associates said. Her choice of lieutenants, and her insistence on staying with them even when friends urged her to shake things up, was blamed by some associates for the campaign√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s woes. Again and again, the senator was portrayed as a manager who valued loyalty and familiarity over experience and expertise.”
