Austan Goolsbee needs to go.

If the Obama campaign doesn't think he can be trusted to talk to the press and put everything to rights, then he needs to be canned or to not speak for the campaign.

He might be a brilliant mind but he doesn't have the smarts to get through the minefield.

I hope Obama gets rid of him now.

that would be sweet.

He's not an employee of the campaign is he?

It can't be too hard to find a replacement economist.

... and somehow, that morphs into "It's Goolsbee's fault" and "Negative campaigning works!"

It's bizarro-world in Democratic Politics. :crazy:

I don't understand why they didn't trot him out to say he was misinterpreted. I'm guessing that was due to a lack of confidence in his ability to fix it on the part of the campaign and that is what makes me say he needs to go.

Goolsbee An Expensive Indulgence?

It's hard to say whether this has any necessary connection to the NAFTA stuff. But a lot of the suspicion in liberal policy circles toward Obama centered on Goolsbee and his positions on Social Security and social insurance generally. What's ironic about the NAFTA/Goolsbee thing is Clinton's actually the candidate who's always been basically pro-NAFTA whereas Obama's the reverse. So I wonder if having Goolsbee around (who I suspect, based on other policy positions but don't specifically, is pro-NAFTA) came back to bite Obama.

Late Update: TPM Reader NBL chimes in ...

I'm an Ohio native and can tell you that many people I talked to referenced Obama's 'double talk' (their words, not mine) on NAFTA as their reason for switching to Clinton. They said they don't trust Clinton, but now they don't trust Obama either. I've always wondered what would happen if someone punctured Obama's aura of integrity and trustworthiness. I guess Ohio gave us the answer. I just never thought it would be someone on his own team that did the puncturing.

My biggest fear now is that the turf wars within the Clinton camp will lead Penn to aggressively push the idea (wrongly) that the '3AM' ad was what put them over the top. If Penn wins the battle of egos, the Clinton campaign could go hardcore negative and end up handing the presidency to McCain. I guess I should expect as much from a campaign built by people (not Clinton, her advisers) who care more about the credit and blame than on what actually works.

p.s: I was raised and went to college in Ohio. For much of that time I worked on local and statewide Democratic campaigns. Trust me when I say NAFTA is a BIG issue among Democrats there.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/181508.php