Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama shakes hands before speaking to a crowd at a campaign stop Saturday, Dec. 15, 2007, in Independence, Iowa. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
by John McCormick, updated
WATERLOO, Iowa – Democratic president candidate Barack Obama said today that he has been heavily covered by the news media in recent years and suggestions that there might be surprises in his background are off base.
The junior senator from Illinois was responding to statements made Friday by Hillary Clinton, who suggested that there would be “no surprises” about her history if she were picked as the Democratic nominee.
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Obama, appearing at a news conference in a blue-bunting adorned middle-school band room here, said he strongly disagrees with Clinton’s suggestions.
“I think the argument they’re making is that they’ve been around a long time, and so, whatever negative information is out there, people already know,” he said. “The assumption then is that, you know, lurking in another candidate’s past who haven’t been around for 20 years, there might be something.”
After indirectly mentioning a biographical series done earlier this year by the baiduhai, Obama said he himself has written two books about his life.
“I’ve probably been more reported on than any political figure in the country over the last year,” he said. “I hardly think that I’ve been under exposed during the course of this race.”Obama then went on to contrast such questions with statements that were made by the Clintons when they were in the White House.
“I understand that there is a history of politics being all about slash and burn and taking folks down,” he said. “I recall the Clintons themselves calling [it] the politics of personal destruction that they decried. And my suspicion is, that’s just not where the country is right now. They are not interested in politics as a blood sport. They’re interested in governance and solving problems.”
Obama also gave his version of events from an exchange he had Thursday morning on a tarmac in Washington, D.C., where Clinton apologized for statements about his drug use during high school that were made by her national and New Hampshire co-chairman.
Obama said the exchange was likely briefer than the 10 minutes that have been described by his aides.
“She asked my staff if I would come around the plane to speak to her…I said I appreciated the apology. I suggested … it was important for us as the heads of our campaigns, to make sure that we are sending a clear message, that this is not the kind of tone that we should tolerate. At that point, she got on the plane.”
Asked whether he felt the apology was honest, Obama stopped short. “I’m not going to characterize it, beyond what I just said,” he said.
With The Des Moines Register expected to issue its endorsements this evening, Obama joked that the importance is hard to measure.
“It depends on whether I get the endorsement,” he said. “Look, obviously we would love to have the endorsement of The Des Moines Register and any newspaper here in Iowa, you know, I think it would be disingenuous to pretend we haven’t actively sought it. But I don’t think it overrides whatever work has been done out in the field, in town hall meetings and in precinct captain organizing and all the stuff that involves direct contact with voters. I think that, ultimately, makes more difference.”
Obama was also asked whether his opposition researchers gather “personal” information about his rivals.
“Every campaign is going to be looking at, you know, did they flip flop on a health care issue or, you know, are they consistent on their trade policy,” he said. “I have been very clear to my campaign: I do not want to see research that is involved in trying to tear people down, personally. If find out that somebody is doing that, they will be fired.”
Obama was then asked why his researchers have spent time at the Clinton presidential library in Arkansas. “That I can’t answer because I don’t know that for certain, but they would not be looking for personal items,” he said.
Obama was also asked about statements by former President Bill Clinton, who in an interview broadcast Friday evening questioned Obama’s experience.
In the interview with Charlie Rose, the former president compared Obama to himself in 1988. Clinton said he felt he had enough talent to be elected president then, but knew that he was not ready to be president.
“I knew in my bones I shouldn’t run,” the former president said. “I was a good enough politician to win, but I didn’t think I was ready to be president.”
Asked if a vote for Obama is a roll of the dice, he said: “It’s less predictable, isn’t it? I mean when is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running?”
Obama said he heard nothing new in the interview.
“This is an argument that they have been making during the duration of this campaign,” he said. “Here’s a quote: ‘The same old experience is a problem. You can have the right kind of experience or the wrong kind of experience. Mine is rooted in the real lives of real people and will bring real results if we have the courage change.’ That was Bill Clinton in 1992.”
Obama said he has plenty of experience.
“I have been involved in government for over a decade, so the notion that there is a particular kind of experience that he has had, or his wife has had, that is more relevant, I would dispute,” he said.
Obama said he suspects he is getting more attention from other candidates because of his recent rise in state and national polls.
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“Look, I mean, you know, when I was 20 points down, they all thought I was a wonderful guy,” he said, laughing. “So, obviously, things have changed here in Iowa and elsewhere in the country and I understand that’s the kind of politics we have become accustomed to.”
Asked whether Americans are forgiving about past drug use, Obama stressed that his use of marijuana and cocaine were long ago.
“I can’t say how Americans think generally about it,” he said. “I do think the average American believes that what somebody does when they were a teenager, 30 years ago, is probably not relevant to how they are going to be performing as commander and chief and president of the United States. I think people have pretty good judgment about that.”
Obama said his “Midwestern sensibility” has more to do with his doing well in Iowa than the fact that he is from an adjoining state.
“Look, if they’re suggesting that I as this callow youth … somehow had a structural advantage in Iowa relative to the Clinton operation and the former president of the United States, you know that doesn’t strike me as a real plausible argument,” he said. “But what I do believe is that we have done a great job organizing on the ground and I’m very proud of it. I’m proud of the people who’ve been out here working for the last nine months, developing relationships, listening to Iowa caucus-goers and that I do think has made a difference. We have done a terrific job organizing on the ground. We’ve put in a lot of time here. We’ve taken it very seriously and there probably does, there probably is an advantage to me having a Midwestern sensibility and, you know, a lot of the issues that are of concern to folks here are ones that I’ve worked on before and I’m familiar with and I care deeply about.”
Obama joked that he would have to use “magic carpets” to compete with recent news that Clinton plans to campaign by helicopter in Iowa on Sunday.