Bayh To Douglass: Obama Vulnerable To Attack In General
IN Sen. Evan Bayh tells National Journal Contributing Editor Linda Douglass in an interview airing this afternoon on POTUS 08 that “there is less possibility of movement in a negative direction” with Hillary Clinton and that Barack Obama is “a little more vulnerable” in the general:
Q: One of the matters that the superdelegates certainly are considering is which of the candidates is going to be the most electable when running against John McCain in the general election. And the Obama campaign often points to the fact that Hillary Clinton has got very high negatives in the polls that have been taken recently -- that a majority of people have an unfavorable view of her. What about that argument? Is that a vulnerability for her?
Bayh: Well, these polls come and go, and there were a bunch more out today and it looked to me like the positives and negatives for Senator Clinton and Senator Obama were roughly equal. And the question is not where we are today, but where we're going to be. And unfortunately, I think that people on the far right, and those who advise them like Karl Rove are going to look at this and conclude the only chance they have of winning, which is, of course, what they mainly care about, is to basically disqualify our nominee. People don't like the direction of the country today. They don't approve of the job performance of our current president. And they are going to look more favorably upon either of our nominees, so regrettably, and I say this with sadness, but I just think it's an expression of reality -- they are going to attack, attack, attack. And the result of that is going to be -- we have got to look at who is strongest of our two candidates, who is going to be more resilient in standing up to those things. They'll attack Hillary too. No question about it, but people already have a pretty fixed opinion of her. Barack's challenge is, when you are new, when people don't know you very well, the other side has a greater opportunity to kind of fill in those blanks in a way that is potentially harmful to you.
Q: So you think he'd be more vulnerable, then, to those kinds of attacks than she would?
Bayh: Well, I think it's something they're going to have to address if he is the nominee, and, look, if he is, I'll support him wholeheartedly. But I think it's just a question of reality -– they'll attack her too. And she's got some weaknesses they'll try to exploit too. I just think that most of that is already known. People have an opinion about that, and so there's less possibility of movement there in a negative direction and I think he may be a little more vulnerable, not because he's a bad person, but just because he's new and people don't know as much about him.