Obama Wrong About D.N.C. Claim

ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., inaccurately claimed Tuesday that the Democratic National Committee has defended his decision to launch a national cable buy reaching a substantial number of homes in Florida, a state which violated D.N.C. rules by scheduling its contest before Feb. 5.

"The DNC has consistently said that we have not broken that pledge," said Obama.

Obama's claim is not true.

"The DNC has not weighed in on the pledge because it was a pledge with the state party chairs from the four early states, not the DNC," DNC spokeswoman Stacie Paxton told ABC News.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/01/obama-wrong-abo.html

that the other two don't do the same thing. He won't be able to open his mouth.

Who's fault will it be this time? Certainly not the DNC's.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/clinton-says-obamas ...

snip//

In a brief statement, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the campaign consulted with South Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler, one of the initiators of the pledge, who “told us unequivocally she did not consider this to be in violation of {a} pledge made to the early states.”

“Both national cable networks told us it would be impossible for us to run advertising nationally that excluded only Florida,” Burton said.

Sounds logical to me.

Cupcake? CUPCAKE?!

uses demeaning terms like that all the time. Never heard you say pookie to them.

That was why the reaction. Didn't help that someone below called Hillary a witch. I was on sexism patrol. And posting at work, which is kinda like driving in traffic (react first, ask questions later.)

But I see you are female, and so my outrage is not appropriate. Sorry about that.

I can only react to what I've seen. I don't remember seeing what you're talking about. But then again, I don't hang out here 24/7.

Nevertheless, if I see insulting language regardless of who does it, I generally try to at least alert on the post.

means she shouldn't be calling names if she isn't sure.

And also calling someone names because you think they've called you names doesn't exactly improve the atmosphere around here, either. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that.

The agreement was between all four effected State Party Chairs and the Candidates.

There is no logic behind the assertion that since only the South Carolina vote still is pending that only the approval of the South Carolina State Democratic Party Chair was needed to nullify the terms of the pledge made by all the candidates. Consider this:

"On Thursday, Florida State Senator Ted Deutch sent a letter to the Democratic Party Chairs of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. The letter asks the Chairs of the four early states to release the Democratic candidates from their pledge not to campaign in Florida before February 5th. Florida's primary is scheduled for January 29th, 3 days after the last of the four early primaries in South Carolina on the 26th. Senator Deutch's letter states:


On January 26th when the polls close in South Carolina, the goals you established in September when you asked the candidates to sign the Pledge will have been fully satisfied, and there will be no compelling reason for you to ask the candidates to continue to abide by the Pledge.

For five months, the candidates will have concentrated their attention on your four states. Allow Florida to have two days."

http://fl-kossacks.blogspot.com/2008/01/will-florida-no-campaign-pledge-lifted.html


Note that even this request for flexibility coming from a Florida State elected Democrat only calls for flexibility regarding the pledge AFTER South Carolina votes, not before then. And it is directed to ALL FOUR State Party Chairs, not just to the Chair of South Carolina.

There is a reason why it is a bogus argument that only South Carolina's position now is relevant because only South Carolina has not yet voted, and I mean a reason beyond the obvious one that the agreement on it's face does not drop State's from having a say in the pledge's terms once voters in that particular state have already voted. The point of the agreement in the first place was to make sure that States like Florida IN THE FUTURE do not attempt to arbitrarily move their primary dates up to usurp the traditional focus on the first states to caucus and vote, by forcing candidates to divert their energies to campaigning elsewhere as other larger states crowd the front end of the primary calender.

All parties to that agreement agreed on terms that they felt put sufficient teeth into the agreement to stop other states from doing what Florida did this year in the future. Those teeth were designed to include a severe disincentive for candidates to campaign inside of Florida until AFTER ALL FOUR early DNC sectioned contests were concluded. Those agreements furthermore were timed to expire AFTER the literal Florida vote, not before then; not even three days before then, which is why the letter from Florida Senator Deutch REQUESTED a voluntary release that would allow candidates to campaign inside Florida AFTER the South Carolina vote.

Senator Obama and the State Chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party did not by themselves have standing to dissolve on their own an agreement arrived at by all the candidates and all four of the four effected State Chairs.

of the pledge in the first place. So they checked themselves with her to make sure they were cool, and were assured they were. Seems like a good faith gesture, at least.

It was an important agreement. If it wasn't it would have been broken long ago by all parties. There was no lack of clarity that the agreement was with all 4 state chairs, and there was no lack of clarity about why all 4 state chairs wanted that agreement in the first place. And there was no lack of clarity about what the terms of that agreement were. Given all of that common sense converges with a technical reading of the agreements wording to affirm that the pledge can't be terminated by seeking the advice and consent of one State Chair only.

The Obama campaign seems to have claimed that since South Carolina was the only state that had not yet voted they cleared their ad purchase with the South Carolina Chair. Several news sourses assert that. I can't find a direct quote but it is flat out stated in several news reports I read, including these two:

"The Obama campaign responded saying the pledge was to the early states and the only early state left is South Carolina. “Both national cable networks told us it would be impossible for us to run advertising nationally that excluded only Florida,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. “For that reason we consulted with the South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler who told us unequivocally she did not consider this to be in violation of pledge made to the early states.”
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/01/obamas_hall_pass.html

"Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a written statement, “Both national cable networks told us it would be impossible for us to run advertising nationally that excluded only Florida. For that reason we consulted with the South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler who told us unequivocally she did not consider this to be in violation of pledge made to the early states."

Obama's campaign called South Carolina's Democratic Party since they were the ones that were directly affected by Florida's move to an earlier Jan. 29 primary."
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/01/21/politics/fromtheroad/entry3734956.shtml

If we want to speculate I would speculate that the Obama camp may have had reason to suspect that the South Carolina Democratic Psrty Chair would be willing to provide Obama with political cover for his ad buy, and so that is who they "asked".

vs local ad buys.

In other words, it seems he was asking if he was within the rules, not if he could break them.

It is a violation if that results in advertising taking place inside Florida, there was no exception in the rules for national buys:

"The Obama ad is running on CNN nationwide, including, the Clinton campaign said, in about 6.6 million Florida homes. Even though it's not aimed at Florida, that violates the pledge, Clinton's campaign contended.

In the ad, Obama's former law professor, Laurence Tribe, praises Obama and speaks of his commitment to change and his ability to unite Republicans and Democrats.

Clinton campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee cited the definition of "campaigning" in the pledge - which prohibits public campaigning, high profile appearances and advertising, allowing only fundraising visits - saying it makes no difference if the ad is running nationwide. He said Clinton has run only state-level ads, and Obama could have done the same."
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/jan/22/na-democrats-pact-to-boycott-florida-cracking/

I can't remember where I saw a more formal definitiion of the term "advertising" for the sake of this agreement but I did.

Besides, there is no good logic for consulting with one and only one state Chair before potentially breaching an agreement reached with all four. If there was a good enough reason to consult with one of them there was a good enough reason to consult with all of them, not to mention the other candidates who also took that pledgge. The only logic for that course of action is the one which, like I said above, there are clear indications that the Obama camp claimed; the reason they consulted with South Carolina only was because only South Carolina had not voted yet.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

And she's not my candidate.

it's all you have.

I don't know how any self respecting woman could ever for this clown.

One poster's bigotry on a site like this does not mean it came from the candidate himself. If it did, then we'd all be wondering how we could vote for ANY of these people.

That's some truth squad for you.

Does your deception have no end?

What is your goal in posting this?
To misinform those who haven't seen the approval story?