
In reviewing readers' comments
from my analysis of Senator Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech, and my colleague
Denise Williams' observations of same, it appears that most Hillary Clinton supporters had a less than favorable opinion of yesterday's address.
Senator Obama and his supporters might be heartened to know, then, that Senator Clinton herself had a more positive assessment of the speech, which has received near-universal praise from the mainstream press. But only just.
Clinton chief strategists Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson spoke about a number of issues during a conference call today, chief among them the status of the Michigan and Florida delegations. The Clinton campaign would like the original vote totals to stand, or for there to be a re-vote. When asked if they would support seating the delegates absent new elections, but under some negotiated formula, they declined to "speculate on scenarios."
Then, someone asked if Hillary had managed to watch the speech yet, and what her reaction was. Mark Penn said that she had seen it. And her reaction?
"She thought it was a good speech."
A long silence ensued, as even the call's moderator must have expected a smidgen more analysis than this. Finally, someone else asked a question, and the subject was dropped. The reaction was pointedly blunt.
They spent awhile going over national polls, where Hillary has made gains against Barack, but these polls won't take into account the bounce Obama may get from "The Speech", and they show that the stronger Hillary gets against Obama, the weaker the Deomcrats get against McCain.
Also interesting was, when asked about John McCain's Iran/Al Quaeda gaffe from yesterday, Howard Wolfson declined to jump on McCain or his foreign policy credentials, instead highlighting Hillary's differences with McCain on Iraq policy. Why this reticence to go after McCain? Is Hillary angling for a VP slot with McCain should she lose the nomination?
Finally, they were asked if Clinton's lawyers had anything to do with redactions to the 11,000 pages of documents released today by the National Archive. According to the campaign, all of the redactions were performed by the National Archive, and to the Clinton campaign's credit, they actually requested large amounts of the material to be unredacted.