CLINTON SPOKESMAN: EDWARDS COST HER THE NOMINATION
August 11th, 2008, 10:30 am · Post a Comment · posted by Dan Lehr
From ABC News:
Sen. Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic presidential nominee if John Edwards had been caught in his lie about an extramarital affair and forced out of the race last year, insists a top Clinton campaign aide, making a charge that could exacerbate previously existing tensions between the camps of Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.
“I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee,” former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com.
Clinton finished third in the Iowa caucuses barely behind Edwards in second place and Obama in first. The momentum of the insurgent Obama camaign beating two better-known candidates — not to mention an African-American winning in sucn an overwhelmingly white state — changed the dynamics of the race forever.
Obama won 37.6 per cent of the vote. Edwards won 29.7 per cent and Clinton won 29.5 per cent, according to results posted by the Iowa Democratic Party.
“Our voters and Edwards’ voters were the same people,” Wolfson said the Clinton polls showed. “They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama.”
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Wolfson said the Clinton campaign was aware of the issue, but did not try to fan the flames.
“Any of the campaigns that would have tried to push that would have been burned by it,” said Wolfson.
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Wolfson’s contention is not shared by the Obama campaign, whose officials never bought the argument that Clinton was the second choice of Edwards voters. Immediately after Edwards dropped out of the race at the end of January, Obama won eleven straight contests in a row.
Edwards ruined it for Clinton? I don’t buy it. What do you think?
p.s. Tune in to NewsChannel 9 at 6 tonight - we are attempting a story on local folks who donated money to the Chattanooga campaign.
