by Mike Dorning
DILLON, S.C.—The fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is getting more bitter and more personal by the day.
For more than a week, Bill and Hillary Clinton have seized on a remark Obama made in a newspaper interview that Republicans were “the party of ideas” during the 1990s to suggest that the Democratic presidential candidate is, in fact, an admirer of the other party’s policies.
Obama has vociferously argued that the Clintons are mischaracterizing his comments. His protests that the portrayal was false formed the opening volley in the remarkably hostile presidential debate between the Democratic frontrunners on Monday.
Now, after the Clinton campaign went on the radio airwaves in South Carolina today with an ad that again uses the remark to suggest he is suspect in his opposition to Republican views, the Obama campaign has fired back with an ad that unmistakably calls Hillary Clinton a liar.
The Obama radio ad, which the campaign said it sent out to South Carolina stations late this afternoon, claims Clinton is “making false attacks on Barack Obama.” And it cites the Washington Post to assert “Clinton isn’t telling the truth.” The ad quotes a Post article that reported Obama “did not say that he liked the ideas of Republicans.”
“Hillary Clinton,” the ad concludes, “She’ll say anything, and change nothing.”
The Clinton ad broadcasts audio of a portion of an interview with a Reno, Nev. Newspaper in which Obama said, “The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years.”
“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,” the announcer asks. “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?”
Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said the New York senator’s 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.
The script for the Obama ad and the Clinton ad follows, along with a transcript of Obama’s original remarks:
The Obama ad:
Obama: I’m Barack Obama, running for President and I approve this message.
Announcer: It’s what’s wrong with politics today. Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected.
Now she’s making false attacks on Barack Obama.
The Washington Post says Clinton isn’t telling the truth. Obama “did not say that he liked the ideas of Republicans”
In fact, Obama’s led the fight to raise the minimum wage, close corporate tax loopholes and cut taxes for the middle class.
But it was Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Tom Brokaw, who quote “paid tribute” to Ronald Reagan’s economic and foreign policy.
She championed NAFTA – even though it has cost South Carolina thousands of jobs.
And worst of all, it was Hillary Clinton who voted for George Bush’s war in Iraq.
Hillary Clinton. She’ll say anything, and change nothing.
It’s time to turn the page.
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The Clinton ad:
Announcer: “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.”
Announcer: 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.”
Announcer: 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 to the Reno Journal-Gazette:
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.