"Somewhere Between Their Nose And Their Forehead"
Robert Gibbs, a senior advisor to Barack Obama, talked to reporters today, and the full report, per NBC/NJ's Athena Jones, is available after the jump.
The News: Obama will make three stops Sunday in Ohio
Gibbs talks Halloween (Obama will Trick or Treat in Chi tmrw eve with his daughters), Missouri, Ohio, John McCain’s Khalidi attack, ethics complaint and the story about Obama’s ‘aunt’ (no comment on this)
Read on.
In a brief scrum with reporters after the Sarasota event, Gibbs said Obama's trip to Iowa Friday was partially to encourage early voting. He said that in the last few weeks the campaign has popped into places “when they’re in the midst of or in the beginning of early vote to try to drive those numbers up.”
On Halloween: Gibbs said Obama would be back in Chicago Friday night to play the “exceedingly important role of Trick-or-Treater in Chief” but doesn’t know what he’ll dress up as and was unclear about whether he would actually go trick or treating with his daughters (there’s been talk that they’ll go with family friends or to a party at a neighborhood friends house. It is unclear whether the pool – CNN – will get video, but it looks like something they are trying to avoid.
On Missouri visits: “It’s a big chunk of electoral votes and in a state that not surprisingly has had big economic troubles. We’ve had good crowds and good enthusiasm there dating back to the primaries. You know, again it’s one more red state that we’re playing offense in heading up til Tuesday.”
On Ohio: “We’re there, far as I know all day Sunday, so we’re uh, I think there’s three stops in Ohio Sunday so we’ll get a good chunk of that as well.”
Gibbs said visiting places like Sarasota and Jacksonville is not as much about ‘this is a Republican area, this is a Democratic area, because in each of these areas there are Democrats that will normally participate in a state election that may not for some reason vote in a presidential election. There’s that fall off or drop off vote that we want to get excited, you know, whether it’s- I mean, I don’t know the figures for this area (Sarasota) but I know for instance up in the northern part of the state like in Jacksonville, there’s a big chunk of folks that just don’t participate for some reason in Democratic elections and a stop there and a visit by us coordinated with trying to get folks out to vote early has a way of, again, not just changing the percentage within an area, but changing the importance of that area as it relates to Democratic voters.”
On McCain’s Khalidi attack, will it hurt with Jewish voters in Florida: “No, I think the McCain boomerang yesterday landed somewhere between their nose and their forehead.”
ON ACU Senate ethics complaint: “This would be kitchen sink number 4 from the McCain campaign. I mean they pick a message and try to drive it, but they’ve instead decided to empty out the file drawer and get a conservative interest group to do something and throw it against the wall. It hasn’t worked up until now.”
On reports about his aunt living in Boston: “I’m not gonna get into that.”
He did not answer a question about whether the campaign had ‘not ruled out’ a visit to Arizona, but he said: “We’ve seen a number of public polls, as you guys have, in the past few days that show, not surprisingly, a close race in Arizona and it’s something we’ll watch.”
On the interaction between Clinton and Obama in Kissimmee last night: “It was very cordial. They were, I mean one thing you get from their meetings together is uh- you know they’re, I mean I think they’re very similar in the sense that they are, they’re both very interested in not just the politics but a lot in the policy and what has to happen and what has to change and I think they spent a lot of time talking about that and you know, they can both, I heard Barack afterward talk about the stories he’d heard on the rope line, people who’ve lost their jobs or lost their, soon to lose their houses, you know, so you get two guys, two policy wonks together, they want to talk about solutions and they spend a lot of time talking about stuff like that.”
He said Clinton and Obama talked for probably 5 or 10 minutes before they were announced and then afterwards for several minutes between Pres. Clinton doing some tv interviews.
Asked again about aunt story: “I’m not gonna get into that.” (Q, why is that?) “Just not.”
I hope the Khalidi attack indeed boomerangs. After all, this is the same guy who received over %500,000 from John McCain and the International Republican Institute.
It's about truth, Mulvaney...why all the LIES from Obama? Why - every time he gets the chance to produce evidence to support his "Dreams" narrative - does he pass? His past is a big secret, his Dreams is a fictional construct, his words are inconsistent and empty. He is a politican running for the Highest Office and his words have been recorded....why shouldn't the American public hear him - in his natural element and before he learned how to SpeakEmpty?
McCain's supporters
are blind to their candidate's flaws: Namely, that he failed the test in his first crucial decision, by choosing Sarah Palin as his VP. How can he look at the American people and honestly say he put his country first?
Members of the Republican party (at least the intelligent and informed members) agree that choosing her was a huge blunder. That choice alone disqualifies him from being our president. But then there's his well-known and documented terrible temper. Do we really want a president who speaks through clenched teeth whenever he's asked a question he doesn't like? His little tics of winking every few seconds (a trait he and Palin share, by the way)--makes me wonder if that's why he picked her. Could they possibly think winking makes them look lovable? I can't recall any other presidential candidate winking his way into the White House--it looks ridiculous and is unseemly in a presidential candidate. That, plus his over use of "air quotes" and now his reliance on "Joe The Plumber" to deliver his "message"-- is just pitiful. I sort of feel sorry for Joe. Every time he opens his mouth his ignorance shows. To see him standing alongside McCain at rallies--on those occasions when he decides to show up--makes McCain look even more pathetic. But McCain seems delighted to have Joe's support and to share a stage with him. Don't McCain's people listen to what Joe the Plumber is actually saying?!!! It's like listening to Professor Irwin Corey--if anyone out there remembers him. Corey made a career out of talking nonsense...but now this "Joe" seems eager to turn his 15 minutes of fame into some kind of personal bonanza. Can it be true that some record company actually signed him to a recording contract?!!! What am I saying...of course it's probably true. A good portion of the people in our country (in both the real America and fake America parts) love watching people make asses of themselves. One needs only to turn on the television to watch them on all these reality shows. I just didn't expect to see it in a presidential race.
McCain's supporters
are blind to their candidate's flaws: Namely, that he failed the test in his first crucial decision, by choosing Sarah Palin as his VP. How can he look at the American people and honestly say he put his country first?
Members of the Republican party (at least the intelligent and informed members) agree that choosing her was a huge blunder. That choice alone disqualifies him from being our president. But then there's his well-known and documented terrible temper. Do we really want a president who speaks through clenched teeth whenever he's asked a question he doesn't like? His little tics of winking every few seconds (a trait he and Palin share, by the way)--makes me wonder if that's why he picked her. Could they possibly think winking makes them look lovable? I can't recall any other presidential candidate winking his way into the White House--it looks ridiculous and is unseemly in a presidential candidate. That, plus his over use of "air quotes" and now his reliance on "Joe The Plumber" to deliver his "message"-- is just pitiful. I sort of feel sorry for Joe. Every time he opens his mouth his ignorance shows. To see him standing alongside McCain at rallies--on those occasions when he decides to show up--makes McCain look even more pathetic. But McCain seems delighted to have Joe's support and to share a stage with him. Don't McCain's people listen to what Joe the Plumber is actually saying?!!! It's like listening to Professor Irwin Corey--if anyone out there remembers him. Corey made a career out of talking nonsense...but now this "Joe" seems eager to turn his 15 minutes of fame into some kind of personal bonanza. Can it be true that some record company actually signed him to a recording contract?!!! What am I saying...of course it's probably true. A good portion of the people in our country (in both the real America and fake America parts) love watching people make asses of themselves. One needs only to turn on the television to watch them on all these reality shows. I just didn't expect to see it in a presidential race.