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Clinton Aide Harold Ickes Compares Obama To Jesse Jackson

February 25th, 2008
By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

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File this one in your “Here We Go Again” file:

Despite the backlash against President Clinton when he compared the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama to that of Rev. Jesse Jackson after the South Carolina primary, a top Clinton advisor evoked that comparison again today.

Long-time Democratic National Committee member Harold Ickes, who served as deputy chief of staff for President Clinton and is a top aide to Sen. Hillary Clinton, made the comparison at a breakfast with reporters today when asked if he thinks stretching the Democratic primary on for three more months will hurt the Democrats in a general election.

“We have two really strong and very good candidates. This party has been blessed … to have a woman who, I think will be the next president of the United States [and] to have a powerful spokesman in the form of Sen. Obama and he is, that’s one of the reasons I supported Jesse Jackson in 19894 and 1988, I thought we needed a strong, powerful candidate, a black candidate, running for president,” Ickes said.

Indeed, Ickes did work on Jackson’s presidential bids. But the comparison is a sensitive subject for voters, who felt President Clinton’s comment comparing Obama’s decisive South Carolina win to that of Jackson was inappropriate and racially charged.

Some say the comment could have contributed to some of his wife’s losses in the February races.

So many cards are seemingly being thrown out that voters will soon need to hire a specialist from Las Vegas to handle them. He’s characterizing Obama as a “black candidate” rather than how Obama has conducted himself — in the view of many Republicans, independents and Democrats — as a candidate with broad support who happens to be black.



This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 9:59 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Newsweek Blogitics, Primaries, Hillary Clinton, Democrats, 2008 Elections, Race, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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