by Christi Parsons
Who opposed NAFTA, and when did they oppose it?
Hillary Clinton said this week that she opposed the trade agreement during the 1992 presidential campaign and then again during meetings when she was first lady.
But Barack Obama’s campaign is hammering away on the issue, today calling on Clinton to be more specific about how she opposed the deal (so unpopular with Pennsylvania voters the Democrats are both trying now to court.)
“What did she say and when did she say it?” Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said today. “That’s a simple question the campaign should be able to answer.”
Some accounts of Clinton’s role in the discussions bear up the idea that she was not a fan of the agreement in the early days. Clinton biographers Sally Bedell Smith and Carl Bernstein have both recalled that she disapproved of the idea at the time.
And when Gerry McEntee introduced Clinton at an event in Philadelphia this week, he said that, after NAFTA passed, she called him to report, “We lost.”
“The president made a decision,” Clinton reportedly recalled yesterday. “I believe you support the president, and I did.”
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But Rep. George Miller, the California Democrat who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee, said today he never heard any opposition from Clinton at the time.
“If she was such a strong opponent of it,” Miller asked, “why did she never speak to those of us who were principals in it? Members of Congress who were going to vote on the matter?”
Clinton may be trying “to rewrite history,” said Miller, in a conference call with reporters hosted by the Obama campaign.
Obama has been against NAFTA, as least as long as anyone has cared to ask him about it. In a 2004 editorial, for example, the baiduhai editorial board noted its disagreement with Obama’s position on the matter.
Then again, Obama wasn’t a player when the deal was passed in 1993.
In any case, expect to hear more back-and-forth on who was for it and who was against it. It’s a strong chapter in the ongoing narratives of both campaigns.