by John McCormick
SAN ANTONIO – The day after losing three out of four states to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama took a sharper tone, pledged to fight until the convention if necessary and challenged the media to more thoroughly examine his Democratic nomination opponent.
“One of the things, you know, I hope people start asking is what exactly is this foreign experience that she’s claiming,” Obama said on his campaign plane before flying home to Chicago.
“She talks about visiting 80 countries,” he said. “It’s not clear, you know, was she negotiating treaties or agreements or was she handling crisis during this period of time. My sense is the answer is no. I have not seen any evidence that she is better equipped to handle a crisis.”
Obama said the media has given Clinton the benefit of the doubt that she has more experience than him.
“It’s important to examine that claim and not just allow her to assert it, which I think has been going on for quite some time,” he said. “She’s made the argument that she’s thoroughly vetted, in contrast to me. I think it’s important to examine that argument because if the suggestion is somehow that on issues of ethics, or disclosure or transparency, that somehow she’s going to have a better record than I have and will be better able to withstand Republican attacks, that’s an issue that should be tested,…Over the coming weeks, we will join her in that argument … because I think I’m in a much stronger position to run against the Republicans than she is, otherwise I wouldn’t be running for president.”
Despite Clinton’s wins in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, Obama said he remains well positioned in the battle for delegates.
“The delegate count is essentially unchanged from where it was yesterday,” he said. “And, so now we go to Wyoming and Mississippi. We think we’ll do well this week. We feel that there’s a strong possibility that we gain substantially more delegates out of Wyoming and Mississippi than Sen. Clinton gained last night. And so we will continue to build our delegate lead. We will continue campaign in every state. We will not be cherry picking which states we deem is important because our attitude is that every state is important.”
But Obama also acknowledged that it was not mathematically impossible for Clinton to win enough delegates.
“No, no. I mean, look, she is going to try to persuade the superdelegates that she should be the nominee,” he said. “That is entirely within her rights and, you know, there’s nothing that binds the superdelegates to honor what the voters in all these states and caucuses have determined.”
Although the demographics of Pennsylvania have some similarities to those of Ohio, Obama said he believes he can compete in the next major state to hold a contest, on April 22.
“They said that about Wisconsin and we won by 18 points, right?” he said.
Actually, sort of wrong: Obama won Wisconsin by 17 points.
“Every state is different,” he said. “I don’t buy into this demographic argument. Missouri, Wisconsin, Virginia, in many of these states we’ve won the white vote and the blue-collar vote and so forth. I think it is very important not to somehow focus on a handful of states because the Clintons say those states are important and the other states are unimportant. If we end up winning Mississippi and Wyoming, that’s important. If we end up winning North Carolina, that’s important. This notion that somehow all the states I win are somehow not bellwether states, but the states that Sen. Clinton wins, those are the critical ones, is, you know, is a strange way of keep score and I don’t think makes much sense.”
If the battle does go to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Obama said he could easily make his case.
“Going into the convention with more votes, more states, more primaries, more caucuses, more delegates, we’re going to be in a pretty strong position,” he said. “And by the way, with respect to superdelegates, I think it’s important to note that over the last couple of weeks we’ve gained scores of delegates and Sen. Clinton [has] actually lost some delegates. So, even that advantage that she had has been drastically diminished.”
Asked if the nomination race could run until the summer convention, Obama downplayed that possibility.
“I don’t think it will necessarily go to the convention floor,” he said. “We will continue accumulate delegates and I think that the superdelegates will consolidate around that person who has the most delegates. We think that will be us.”
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Obama said he could only guess why those who decided shortly before Tuesday’s elections tended to swing toward Clinton.
“It’s hard to speculate. You guys are the pundits. You guys can break it down,” he said. “I think that what we’ve seen happen, and I think this happened in New Hampshire, is when people say that they’re undecided in states where she has previously had a 20-point lead, typically these are folks who were solidly in her camp, they got a little squishy, but they were still leaning in her direction and then went back to where they were before.”
Obama charged that Clinton had run a negative campaign in recent days, which also may have hurt him.
“There’s no doubt that Sen. Clinton went very negative over the last week,” he said. “And the kitchen-sink strategy, I’m sure, had some impact, particularly in a context where many of you in the press corps had been persuaded that you had been too hard on her and too soft on me. And so, you know, complaining about the refs apparently worked a little bit this week. And so, in addition to my call to Loren Michaels, you know, hopefully, now people feel like everything has evened out and we can start actually covering the campaign properly.”
As he often is, Obama was asked about the possibility of a joint ticket with Clinton.
“We are just focused on winning this nomination,” he said. “I think it is very premature to start talking about a joint ticket.”
Obama said he called Clinton last night to congratulate her.
“I always call her after her victories,” he said. “I just said congratulations and get some sleep.”
As Obama headed down the aisle to his first-class cabin section, Obama warned his fellow travelers that they should not expect to be home much.
“I think we’re going to be on the road a few more weeks, guys,” he said.
The Tribune asked: Weeks or months?
The senator smiled and walked away.