Barack Obama has a field day with Hillary Clinton’s “doublespeak, double-talk” ….
Even as the campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination grows harsher, Hillary and Bill Clinton are floating the idea of a “dream ticket” with Barack Obama, an extraordinary piece of political calculus that Mr. Obama himself dismissed yesterday as “gamesmanship.”
Campaigning in Mississippi on the eve of that state’s presidential primary, Mr. Obama ridiculed Hillary Clinton’s repeated hints that she would take him as her vice-presidential running mate in the general election this fall against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.
“I do not believe Senator Clinton is about change, because in fact this kind of gamesmanship — talking about me as vice-president, but ‘maybe he’s not ready for commander-in-chief’ — that’s exactly the kind of doublespeak, double-talk that Washington is very good at,” Mr. Obama told a crowd in Columbus, Miss.
“I don’t know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice-presidency to somebody who is in first place,” said Mr. Obama, who has won more national convention delegates thus far.
“I’m not running for vice-president. I am running for president of the United States of America. I am running to be commander-in-chief.”
During a conference call with reporters, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson was asked about the contradiction of touting Mr. Obama as a vice-presidential candidate while condemning his ability to lead. He answered: “We do not believe Senator Obama has passed the commander-in-chief test. But there is a long way to go between now and Denver.”
Analysts said it is a clever tactic for Ms. Clinton, with the two candidates for the Democratic nomination in a virtual tie and little chance of either winning enough delegates in the remaining primaries and caucuses to claim the nomination outright at the national convention in Denver in August.
“It both compliments and diminishes Obama at the same time,” said John Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. “He can hardly complain that it’s a nasty attack. After all, it’s the highest honour that a presidential nominee can bestow. At the same time, it gets people thinking of him in a subordinate position.”
