Edwards: McCain’s Crazy, Rezko and Obama
If this account is correct, and it seems to be, Obama’s in for a tough ride and we now know what one of the Democratic strategies against McCain will be if he wins the Republican nomination.
According to at least one person who attended a Edwards fundraiser, John Edwards said that Senator John McCain is crazy and that he’s unfit to have his “finger on the button.”
He also told the attendees – and the accounts have been denied by no one who was there, except for Edwards’ campaign and Clinton’s – that Hillary Clinton’s words “we’re just getting warmed up” shouldn’t be taken lightly. According to Edwards, Clinton told him that ‘after the most recent debate Hillary mentioned to John in passing that there’s more about Obama and that “slum landlord” [Rezko] that has yet to be disclosed to the public.’
This doesn’t mean that Clinton herself has more information about the Obama-Rezko connection, but that, perhaps, she knows that other people know more:
The Observer notes that “the source said that Edwards gave no indication that Hillary suggested that it was her campaign that had the Rezko-dirt.” And indeed it would be unlikely that Hillary would confide such a thing to an opponent even if it were true.
If true, it could do great damage to Obama’s saint-like image. If not enough to make Clinton win the nomination, than at least enough to give the Republican nominee a fair chance of beating Obama in the general elections.
The Edwards and Clinton campaigns responded to the article at the Observer:
”This is a bungled version of what Edwards said, like a bad game of telephone. As John Edwards has said many times, Democrats would be crazy to nominate the wrong person against John McCain. People will think about whose finger they want on the button and question whether Senator Obama’s experience may or may not cut it. Edwards has told reporters he’s not going to talk about conversations with other candidates, but based on Monday night’s debate with Obama using Wal-Mart and Hillary using Rezko, anyone who thinks this is over missed Senator Clinton’s statement that they’re just getting warmed up.”
Clinton:
Clinton campaign spokesman Jay Carson emailed to say Edwards’ remarks about Hillary Clinton’s remarks, as conveyed by the attendee at the fund-raiser, are “not an accurate account of their conversation.”
LOL, this was the funniest part to me:
The GOP strategy is simple to me. Let the Democrats beat each others brains out. Until they have a candidate. Hopefully it will be Obama. The absolute dislike that many in the democratic party will have for Obama will result in them not voting or voting for a third party candidate. The GOP will go with McCain or Romney. Both relatively Moderate and I believe that the VP nominee could very well be Rudi Guillani…a very liberal Republican. The end result would be that the gop would then not have to play the race card at all. They only get 8 percent of the Black vote anyway. They simply will court the Hispanic vote with the likes of McCain who is in their camp and the Hispanics do not like or get along very well with blacks. So you will have about 60 percent of the hispanic vote fall for the GOP. 8 percent by default fall to the GOP and many in the democratic party sitting out or voting third party because of the dislike fostered by the Democratic primary battles. This is all shaping up to fall right into the GOP hands once again and after the pitiful showing by the democratic controlled congress who is going to be painted as allowing the economy to fall into recession and falling on all its promises, its not unreasonable to believe that the GOP might take back the senate and the Whitehouse. I was hoping for the more moderate(compared to Obama) Hillary to be the nominee. But I can see the GOP strategy unfolding like clockwork.
Sounds like a winner to me.
Actually I’m not so sure it’ll work out that way. I think Edwards is beginning to make a play for being Hillary’s VP and the two of them together will put the upstart Obama in his place. Not sure how it then plays out in the general- right now it looks like McCain beats Hillary but Romney doesn’t, but I agree with those who say that those matchups don’t mean that much at this point.
What I find really good about the current race wars on the Dem side is that in the long term, it could provide an opportunity for the GOP to finally splinter off some black votes. I don’t think it’ll happen right away, but they’re planting seeds of doubt and discontent within their most reliable voting block, and it’ll definitely be an opportunity that the GOP should try to exploit down the road.
As a non-Democrat, I can only wish to think the GOP actually has a "strategy". If the Republicans win, it will be more likely inspite of themselves (or with the help of a world incident that scares swing voters).
Nonetheless, those McCain head to head polls have to give the Dems some real heartburn. McCains negatives are the most well known of any candidate. One would think if people are buying him now, there’s not much chance an October surprise is going to do him in. If McCain pulls off Florida over Giuliani, that’s a definite watershed event.
Let’s not underestimate the potential for the xenophobic wing of the Republicans to alienate Hispanic voters, regardless of who the nominee is. McCain would be their best chance of avoiding that mistake, but even with him, I could see it happening.
It isn’t hard at all to see a November election campaign which hinges on which side does the least damage <i>to itself</i>. The ideological purity folks on both sides are perfectly capable of bringing out the automatic weapons and strapping the gun rest to their knee, just to make sure that they don’t miss shooting themselves in the foot.