by Mike Dorning
SUMTER, S.C.—Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is seeking to draw even more attention to a remark rival Barack Obama made last week that Republicans were the “party of ideas” for much of the 1990s.
The Clinton campaign is now airing a radio ad on stations around South Carolina broadcasting a tape of the remark that suggests Obama supports—or at least does not oppose—some unpopular Republican policies. The ad juxtaposes Obama’s comment with declarations that Clinton opposes “disastrous Republican ideas” such as corporate tax breaks, refusing to raise the minimum wage and running up the national debt.
Hillary Clinton and particularly her husband Bill Clinton have spent much of the past week focusing on his comment and suggesting that the remark indicates Obama may admire Republican policies.
That has drawn a furious response from Obama, who has challenged the truthfulness of the former president and first lady. His protests over their portrayal of the remark formed the opening volley in the bitter, fiercely personal fight between the Democratic frontrunners at the presidential debate on Monday night.Obama notes that the full transcript of his comments shows he was pointing out that the GOP successfully challenged the conventional wisdom of the era and changed the terms of political debate. He never indicated that he favored their ideas.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton denounced the radio ad as a “negative, dishonest attack.”
“Clinton claims that Obama praised Republican ideas apparently in an attempt to obscure her record of voting for Republican ideas like bankruptcy, NAFTA and, of course, the war in Iraq,” Burton said.
Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee countered that the ad “straightforwardly uses Senator Obama’s own words in his own voice saying the Republican Party was the party of ideas for the past 10-15 years.”
“We can understand why the Obama campaign would be frustrated with that. The bottom line is that Senator Clinton is running for President in order to replace those ideas with new ones like jumpstarting our economy, creating jobs and protecting people’s homes,” Elleithee added.
Elleithee declined to say how widely the ad is being aired but Obama campaign spokesman Jen Psaki said the Obama campaign had received reports of the ad airing throughout the South Carolina beginning last night.
South Carolina votes on Saturday in the next primary on the way to the Democratic presidential nomination.
A transcript of the radio ad and the original comments follow:
The Clinton radio ad:
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Narrator: “Listen to Barack Obama last week talking about Republicans.
Obama: “The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years.”
Narrator: “Really? Aren’t those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we’re in today? Ideas like special tax breaks for Wall Street. Running up a $9 trillion debt. Refusing to raise the minimum wage or deal with the housing crisis. Are those the ideas Barack Obama’s talking about?”
Obama: “The Republicans were the party of ideas.”
Narrator: Hillary Clinton thinks this election is about replacing disastrous Republican ideas with new ones, like jumpstarting the economy. Putting an immediate freeze on foreclosures and mortgages. Cutting taxes for the middle class. and creating millions of new jobs. With the economy in crisis, we need a president with the ideas, the solutions that get america working for all of us. Hillary Clinton. Solutions for America.
Obama’s remarks:
I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different.
I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.
I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.
I think Kennedy, twenty years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times.
I think we’re in one of those times right now. Where people feel like things as they are going aren’t working. We’re bogged down in the same arguments that we’ve been having, and they’re not useful.
And, you know, the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out.
I think it’s fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last ten, fifteen years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.