dueling quotes

OBAMA: I think there is no doubt that has higher negatives than any of the remaining Democratic candidates, that's just a fact. And there are some who will not vote for her. I have no doubt that once the nomination contest is over, I will get the people who voted for her. Now the question is, could she get the people who voted for me? - Barack Obama, from an interview on the Christian Broadcast Network

Hillary: As soon as we have a nominee, we will be strongly united because the most important thing is to put a Democrat in the white house starting in January 2009.

To be fair, Edwards makes the "electability" argument all the time and I'm not wild about it there either, but Obama is taking it one step further and suggesting that some of his supporters objectively will never vote for Hillary Clinton. "Some people" won't vote for her because she's a woman and some won't vote for Barack Obama because he's an African American and so the "electability" argument is always going to have a nasty, unspoken dog whistle to it in this race. Which is all the more reason for any Democratic candidate, when they're making that argument, to say that they'll do everything in their power to get their supporters to line up behind the eventual nominee, no matter the outcome.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/23/late-nite-fdl-obama-suggests-his-supporters-wont-vote-for-hillary/

The analogue of his quote for Hillary would be along the lines of "Obama's inexperience on foreign policy will turn people off in the GE," and she's said such things more than once. Making the "my opponent is unelectable!" argument is pretty much de rigueur, no?

Subliminal messaging here?

the three top candidates could deliver all of their supporters to either other candidate, should they not win the nomination. This is due to a few factors. The most important one is the other candidates' negatives. Senator Clinton's supporters are aware that she has the highest negatives of any of the serious candidates in either party. If she is the democratic nominee, her strategy will be based upon winning specific states, not on winning the popular vote. Her campaign was aware of her negatives before the democratic primary season began.