There's been quite a bit of hand-wringing about whether Hillary Clinton is doing enough for Barack Obama. Funny thing though, I didn't see those same very concerned folks covering the New Mexico event she held for him a few weeks ago, an event it should be noted that neither CNN nor local blogs covered.
Whenever I've been asked about it, I've simply said what I thought was obvious: that she's only doing what she's being asked to do by the Obama campaign. And as for whether she should be taking on Palin more directly, I think dispatching governors like Ed Rendell to go after her as a fellow governor is far more effective than dispatching Hillary just because she's a woman. I don't fully agree with Howard Wolfson's recent editorial but he's right about one thing -- there is a disturbing element to the thirst for a "cat fight" in the calls for a sort of Hillary vs. Sarah grudge match.
So I was happy, if unsurprised, to learn from a source that Barack Obama called Hillary Clinton yesterday to thank her for what she's doing on behalf of the campaign. During their conversation, I'm told he thanked her specifically for what she was saying on the campaign trail. The fact is the Obama campaign is working closely with Hillary Clinton on her role in the campaign and will continue to do so until election day.
Update [2008-9-10 14:2:10 by Todd Beeton]:It should be noted that most of the "Hillary isn't doing enough" stuff is coming from the media who, tired of the unity storyline, wants desperately to cover a Hillary vs. Sarah fight to the death. Instead of wondering why Hillary and Barack aren't feeding that beast, however, shouldn't we instead be advancing a counter narrative: that Hillary Clinton is passionately campaigning for Barack Obama in areas where she performed strongly in the primary as she did in Florida this week:
Earlier, in Kissimmee, at a community event on the economy, she asserted that the Republicans proposed few if any positive domestic policies during their convention in St. Paul.“I didn’t see that from Senator McCain and Governor Palin,” Mrs. Clinton said in one of only a handful of explicit references to Ms. Palin on Monday. “I saw more of the same.”
In Orlando, Mrs. Clinton appeared at a convention of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which was one of the first unions to endorse her for president and which has yet to endorse a candidate in the general election.
Drawing cheers and applause from the 1,600 people in the room, Mrs. Clinton said that “we must work as hard as we possibly can” to elect Mr. Obama, and suggested that her supporters needed to put aside personal loyalty to her former candidacy and embrace him as the best hope for their interests.
“Who are you for?” Mrs. Clinton said. “That’s the wrong question. It should be: Who is for you? Who will fight for you?”
Still have complaints about Hillary's engagement on the campaign trail, seems to me it should be directed to the man at the top of the ticket.
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