CNN’s Delightful Surrender Talks Story
by sarabeth at 9:36 am on May 23rd, 2008 in 2008 Presidential, Hillary, Media, Obama Uber AllesCNN’s Suzanne Malveaux has put out a bizarre report claiming that the Clinton campaign has initiated formal surrender talks with the Obama campaign.
The report is based on sourcing from inside the Clinton camp, but is being denied by senior Obama staffers.
According to the network’s Suzanne Malveaux, who reported the story, the Clinton camp sees three possible scenarios at the moment. The first is that Barack Obama offers the vice-presidential slot to someone other than Clinton. This, according to Malveaux, is unacceptable to the Clinton team, which warns of “open civil war within the party,” but says that Clinton would campaign for Obama anyway, even if she were less than fully enthusiastic in her public appearances on his behalf. The second scenario is a face-saving maneuver for Clinton — Obama would publicly offer her the spot as his running mate, and she’d decline. The Obama camp, according to Malveaux’s Clinton sources, isn’t enthralled with this option, as they’re not sure they trust her to keep her promise and decline. The final option is a push to arrange a face-to-face talk between the candidates so they could arrange some sort of concession and show of unity that could involve, for instance, Obama helping to pay the Clinton campaign’s debts, or his supporting her for the position of Senate majority leader.
Clinton, Malveaux says, is aware of the discussions but is not even thinking about the vice-presidency as she continues to run to head the ticket.
Both campaigns, incidentally, have denied such talks are underway. If there were talks, and the Clinton campaign was willing to leak the story to Malveaux, it’s hard to see why they wouldn’t confirm the talks to other reporters too.
But what a lovely story anyway! Hillary has no interest in the VP job, but the Clintonites are threatening “open civil war within the party” if she isn’t offered it? She’ll promise to decline it if it is offered, but her credibility has fallen so low that the Obama campaign doesn’t trust her to keep her word? And it’s the Clinton campaign that’s whispering all this into Malveaux’s ear? Just lovely!
effay wrote:
Ya, this looks like crappy reporting to me. How is there not a scenario where Hildog gets offered the VP and accepts? And the thing about the Obama people being afraid that Hildog would sneak in on the VP in their face-saving scenario; that’s just a stupid thing to say. How could anyone ever keep the fact that Hildog agreed to decline but tricked Obama and accepted from being leaked? And how often does a presidential candidate ever offer the VP to someone through the media? I’ll answer that - never. It’s just ridiculous to think of Obama holding a press conference where he stands up and asks Hildog, or anyone for that matter, to be the VP. As a viewer you’d just be sitting there wondering why Obama couldn’t just go over to their house and ask.
But hey, this is, after all, the network that allows people like Lou Dobbs and Larry King to be on the air. Incidentally, I would note that I am fairly certain that Larry King is dead and he is played on TV by a motorized wax sculpture or something (or maybe that’s what he was to begin with).
Posted 23 May 2008 at 9:59 pm ¶