Hotline After Dark -- Another Clinton Clash

Lots of '08ers on TV last night but first another clash between ex-Pres. Clinton and a reporter:

CNN showed footage of ex-Pres. Clinton aruging with CNN's Jessica Yellin when she asked him about the arguments with Obama's campaign.

Clinton: "Long before South Carolina was in play, when we were in Iowa months ago, I never uttered a word of public complaint when Mr. Obama said Hillary was not truthful, enough character, was poll-driven, when he had more pollsters than she did, when he put out a hit job on me. At the same time, he called her the senator from Punjab. I never said a word. And I don't care about it today. I'm not upset about it. The only thing I pointed out was that there was substantially no difference in her record than his on Iraq and that he had said, in 2004, there was no difference between his position and President Bush. And he said that was somehow dishonest, but he never answers how it is not accurate.

"So, this is crazy. This rhetoric is getting a little carried away here. They are feeding you this because they know this is what you want to cover. This is what you live for. But this hurts the people of South Carolina, because the people of South Carolina are coming to these meetings and asking questions about what they care about. And what they care about is not going to be in the news coverage tonight, because you don't care about it. What you care about is this, and the Obama people know that. So they just spin you up on this and you happily go along. The people don't care about this. They never ask about it. And you are determined to take this election away from them. And that's not right."

Yellin, on Clinton's words to her: "What he's doing it's a classic crisis P.R. tactic, which is, when you're asked about something that you don't want to have to deal with, that makes you uncomfortable, you attack or intimidate the questioner, because that should shame them into silence" ("CNN Election Center," 1/23).

CNN showed more of the footage in the "Situation Room":

Yellin, on Clinton: "He lashed out. ... I asked him -- I had had a conversation earlier today with Dick Harpootlian, who is the former head of the Democratic Party here and now a Barack Obama supporter. And Harpootlian expressed what he called his immense disappointment with the way the Clintons have run the campaign. He said it's 'reprehensible,' and he even compared the way they are running their campaign to the great Republican mastermind, Lee Atwater, who was a master of finding wedge issues and dividing people against one another. So I asked Bill Clinton to respond to these charges and whether he is playing the race card in an inappropriate way. Here's what he said."

Clinton: "Once you accuse somebody of racism or bigotry or something, the facts become relevant. There are facts here. And the final thing I would like to say is, you're asking me about this, you sat through this whole meeting. Not one single, solitary soul asked about any of this. And they never do. They are feeding you this because they know this is what you want to cover."

More Clinton: "Well, you ask me questions based on Harpootlian calls me Lee Atwater. I spent all my life fighting those people. ... They did not ask about this, and you don't care what your own people care about. They care about what happens to the American people. That's one thing John Edwards was right about in the debate. ... One more story. Shame on you" (CNN, 1/23).

FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS

Rudy Giuliani played "Hardball":

On FL: "I am going to win this primary because I think this is a state in which we have done the most work, where we have been the most relevant as far as what the people in Florida are thinking about and caring about. I think that economy now being such a major issue works very much toward our candidacy. I have had the most experience in turning around a government economy. None of my opponents have ever really done that. I took over New York City when it was in difficult shape, when its economy was in difficult shape, 17th largest economy in the world, financial capital of the world. And my policies helped to turn it around."

On how he would help the U.S. economy if he were POTUS: "We can't over-tax. We can't over-spend. We can't over-regulate. We can't over-sue. We have to get control of those things. We need reasonable levels of taxation, which is what my tax plan proposes, a single-page tax form as an option. We need to reduce government spending and we need to do it right now, today. ... We have to stop regulating businesses out of the United States. We are sending the jobs abroad by the over-spending, by our over-regulating, by our over-taxing. We're also doing it by over-suing. We sue too much in this country. When you do comparisons in the United States against other developed countries, businesses find other places more favorable. An American president has to focus on the fact that we have to compete. That is what I had to do for New York. I had to make New York competitive. I did. I slashed unemployment in half, grew jobs by 450,000, and turned it around from a deficit to a surplus. We can do the same thing for this country. We do it aggressively. We do it optimistically. And we do it as competitors, as a competitive nation" (MSNBC, 1/23).

He was also on "LKL":

Asked if he surprised FL polls show him trailing: "No. No. I'm not surprised at all that the polls are very close. The polls that we see, when you average them out, are all within the margin of error. We think they're all going to break over the weekend."

Asked if he and McCain are still friends: "Yes. Absolutely. You can have a disagreement about taxes and be very close" (CNN, 1/23).

And he was in the "Situation Room":

Asked what he thinks of Dems basically naming McCain as their opponent: "Well, they don't get to nominate us and we don't get to nominate them."

Asked what's wrong with Romney's economic/business experience versus his: "He hasn't had the experience of turning a government around. And I turned around a government that happens to be the financial capital of the world and the 17th largest economy in the world. And the thing to do to turn a government around involves lowering taxes. I'm the only Republican that's actually lowered taxes. Mitt Romney didn't support the Bush tax cuts. I did. And I supported the Bush tax cuts because I understood what they could do, because I had done that previously in New York City" (CNN, 1/23).

STILL PLAYING THE GROWNUP

John Edwards was on "Countdown":

Asked if he plans to support the party nominee: "Absolutely, I say that right now. You know, I intend to be the nominee, so, I hope to get the support of Senator Obama and Senator Clinton's supporters but we should absolutely support the nominee."

On SC: "I can feel the momentum in South Carolina right now. When they show undecided voters the debates, they move toward me, almost every time. And I don't think it's an accident. I also don't think it's an accident that Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have adopted so much of what I've been saying" (MSNBC, 1/23).

He was also on "CNN's Election Center":

CNN's Roberts, asking about the debate: "You just said that you were the grownup on stage. People expect their president to behave like a grownup. Are you suggesting that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are not comporting themselves in a fashion that you would want your president or your presidential nominee to be comporting themselves?"

Edwards: "I think that, first of all, people can make their own judgment about it. I was on the stage myself, so I saw it. I think there were moments when the debate got into petty and personal, as opposed to -- there's nothing wrong with making distinctions on issues. That's perfectly legitimate. And we all do that. But when it becomes personal and petty, we're not moving things forward and we're not talking about the things that affect people's lives. That's what I mean when I say I was the grownup" (CNN, 1/23).

HEY FRED SUPPORTERS, COME OVER HERE

And Mitt Romney was on "Hannity & Colmes":

On FL: "It's very close here. It's a pretty tight race. I think you'll find that people are joining my team. We're finding that because people are very concerned about the economy, and because I've spent a lifetime in the private sector and have created jobs there, and went to the Olympics and helped turn things around there, and was in the state of Massachusetts where things were tough, but we got things back on track. People want somebody who has actually done what needs to be done to our national economy, and that's get things back on track."

Asked if he's satisfied with the Bush economic policies: "You know, I love it ... how every time something is not going terribly well, we all call it the Bush plan. But you realize that you have two branches of government in Washington, and what's been happening in Washington is massive over-spending with earmarks, pork barrel spending. The president would dearly love to strip those bills of all that excessive spending, but it's been done by the Democratic Congress."

On Thompson: "I do think that because Fred Thompson was concentrating on rebuilding the Reagan coalition, if you will, of social conservatives and economic and foreign policy conservatives, and that's the same course I've been pursuing during my entire campaign, that a lot of Fred Thompson support will come my way. I sure hope so. I'm calling those guys and asking for their help. I want to get as many of the Thompson people as I can."

On the practical joke his son played on him: "That was pretty good. Matt got some audio clips of Arnold Schwarzenegger off the Internet, and plays them to me. He called from California. He plays them to me over the line. I thought it was Governor Schwarzenegger. That's what my advance guy told me, you got a call here from the governor of California. So I pick up the phone, hello, governor, and he starts with those questions. After a little while, I figured out OK, there's something funny going on here."

Asked his post-FL strategy: "I'm probably not going to tell you that exactly, because I'd have to shoot you if I did. I don't want my competitors to know exactly where I'm going next."

Romney: "I just watched what happened with the Obama/Clinton exchange. It's already going downhill. I hope we can avoid some of that" (FNC, 1/23). [EMILY GOODIN]