The Associated Press reports (via Yahoo!):
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Monday said his campaign made a “dumb mistake” when it circulated a memo criticizing rival Hillary Rodham Clinton’s financial ties to India.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Obama disavowed the memo which carried the headline — “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab) — and referred to Bill and Hillary Clintons’ investments in India; her fundraising among Indian-Americans; and the former president’s $300,000 in speech fees from Cisco, a company that has moved U.S. jobs to India.
“It was a dumb mistake on our campaign’s part and I made it clear to my staff in no uncertain terms that it was a mistake,” Obama told the AP in a brief interview in which he referred to the memo as “unnecessarily caustic.”
Last Thursday, Obama’s campaign sent the memo to reporters, demanding that it not be attributed to their campaign. The Clinton campaign obtained the document and sent it to journalists. Since then, it has created a furor in the Indian-American community and raised questions about Obama’s claims that he is above attack politics.
Obviously a stupid mistake: he should fire those responsible. He is, indeed, trying to present himself as ‘the uniter’ who is “above attacks politics.” The memo suggests that he is not above it at all – in other words, it hurts his message.
This is not the first time that something like this has happened. As Mr. M. writes at Comments from Left Field: “how long can he keep apologizing for a green and undisciplined campaign that time after time makes serious mistakes that are going to become decreasingly easy to forget as we get closer to crunch time?”
I agree with M. that Obama needs to shake up his campaign if he wants to win. One mistake is an accident, two, three, four, five mistakes is a pattern.
Cross posted here.
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