Legal Commentary

Hillary Slams Obama Over Deceptive Ohio Mailers

By Jeralyn

The AP and New York Times report Hillary Clinton is fighting back today.

“Shame on you, Barack Obama,” Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference after a morning rally, holding the flyers and shaking them in the air as she spoke. “It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public. That’s what I expect from you. Meet me in Ohio. Let’s have a debate about your tactics and your behavior in this campaign.”

....“Time and time again, you hear one thing in speeches and then you see a campaign that has the worst kind of tactics, reminiscent of the same sort of Republican attacks on Democrats,” Mrs. Clinton said.

The backstory, about the Obama campaign wrongly claiming Hillary said NAFTA was a "boon" is below:

It was not the first time the Clinton campaign has seen the flyer, which cites an article from Newsday that says Mrs. Clinton believed Nafta was a “boon” to the economy. Mrs. Clinton said the newspaper has since corrected the article.

(Reporters from Newsday responded on its Web site last week, but stopped short of a correction. “The word was our characterization of how we best understood her position on NAFTA, based on a review of past stories and her public statements,” they wrote, adding that the Obama mailer made the word ‘boon” appear to be Mrs. Clinton’s statement. “Obama’s use of the citation in this way does strike us as misleading,” they wrote.)

There are two Obama mailers Hillary alleges are deceptive. From Hillary's Fact Hub:

The Obama campaign is distributing two dishonest mailers in Ohio. The first mailer falsely claims that Hillary said NAFTA was a "boon" to the economy. Hillary never said that. The Obama campaign is basing the quote on a 2006 Newsday article that characterized her views this way without any substantiation. In fact, Newsday recently said that the Obama campaign's use of their article was "misleading." The Politico called the Obama campaign's use of the quote "bogus."

The second mailer from the Obama campaign mimics Harry and Louise ads that the health care industry used to scare people into opposing universal health care. The ad claims "Hillary's health care plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it."

She goes on to say:

Here are the facts:

Sen. Obama fails to mention Hillary's plan cuts costs just as aggressively as Sen. Obama, if not more so.

Hillary's plan contains more generous subsidies than the Obama plan. Noted health expert Ken Thorpe of Emory University concluded that under the Hillary plan, everyone will be able to afford coverage.

The Obama plan leaves 15 million people out, which drives up costs because everyone else ends up subsidizing their emergency care.

Paul Krugman called the mailer "ugly" and "destructive."

Hillary can't afford to let Obama mislead Ohioans about her position on NAFTA -- as in Wisconsin, it will be a big deal there. I'm glad to see her fighting back hard on this one.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 23, 2008 (boomark / email).