Obama got permission before he played the national ad (article)

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080123/NEWS/801230668/1001


But Obama's campaign spokesman Bill Burton disputes the pledge was broken. He said the campaign asked CNN and MSNBC to pull Florida from the ad buy, but the networks said they could not.

The Democratic National Committee stripped the state of its delegates. Then Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina followed by pushing the pledge that bans the candidates from campaigning in the state, including running television commercials or hosting rallies.


Yet South Carolina has become the gatekeeper for the pledge. Burton said Obama's campaign consulted with Carol Fowler, chairwoman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, before the ad ran, and she "told us unequivocally she did not consider this to be in violation of pledge made to the early states," Burton said.

So what are you going to say now... Obama just has Carol Fowler wrapped around his finger, and the other 3 states who formed the campaigning ban didn't speak out because political pressure by the Obama camp, so the Clinton campaign had to make the accusations themselves, instead of getting an accusatory quote from one of the DNC people who actually passed the pledge?

as always, puts it under the radar and blames someone else.

Usual chicago politics

Talk to Carol Fowler if you have a problem. She gave permission.

Got permission? From WHOM???

Clinton camp: Obama's Florida ads bust pledge
By JEREMY WALLACE

H-T POLITICAL WRITER


jeremy.wallace@heraldtribune.com

Hillary Clinton's campaign said Tuesday it will not break a pledge to campaign in Florida, even as Clinton is accusing Barack Obama of doing just that.

"I intend to abide by the pledge and follow the pledge, and that's what we are, you know, planning to do," Clinton told reporters on Tuesday.

Her comments come two days after Obama's campaign launched national television advertisements on CNN and MSNBC that are shown in Florida -- a "blatant" violation of a pledge signed by all of the top Democratic candidates to not campaign in the state, Clinton's campaign says.

Clinton's supporters in Florida are putting new pressure on her to scrap the pledge, arguing Obama's ads make it almost irrelevant.

"It's time to take the gloves off," said Ana Cruz, a Democratic activist from Tampa who is helping lead Clinton's Florida campaign unofficially.

Cruz said it is important for Clinton to get back to Florida and rally support to assure she wins the state on Tuesday.....

The only exception in the ban is for fundraising.....

Later in the article, it says that they were given by the DNC chair of South Carolina, what I quoted.

The Clinton camp has said NOTHING about the DNC disapproving of what Obama did. It is only the Clintons saying they were wrong.



Obama is not campaigning in Florida. He is not running ads specifically in Florida. The problem of national ads was not confronted in the original write-up.

Do you think it makes sense to ban national ads, ads that'll be seen in 49 other states, because they'll be seen in one? The DNC doesn't agree with you, sorry.

be the arbiter of this issue?

Or is my brain fuzzy today.

and no one else has stepped in to contradict the SC chair's decision, who said it was unequivocally fine to run the ad. Go send an e-mail to the chairs in the 3 other states if you are concerned, see what they say/

that will appear in Florida. That is taking an advantage that neither Hillary nor Edwards has taken.

As usual, Obama says that he cannot buy national ads that will not appear in Florida(LIE--check it out with the advertising manager of any tv station. The ads can be run selectivly: one state, a group of states, sections of the country, and the entire country.

Always good to pass the buck as Obama always does. Blame someone else.

Obama DID Campaign in FL. He broke the ad buy rules. Funny how no one else has troubles avoiding FL, save Obama. What, do MSNBC and CNN treat him differently than the rest?

It smells like three day old fish.

You CAN do an ad buy that avoids FL. His campaign is prevaricating if they say otherwise. I've discussed this here before, you can look up those old posts if you really care, and I doubt you do.

All you have to do is TELL THE NETWORK to cut out FL. They can, and WILL, so do for that kind of cash.

They RESELL the ad time to the local affiliates, and if no one buys, the 'default' is an ad for the network. That's why you sometimes see CNN or MSNBC ads--because no one bought the slot.

Disingenuous is too polite a word for that steaming pile Obama's campaign is shopping.

They didn't need any permission from Howard Dean.

What a crock.

Why bother, then?

That fundraising? Perfectly acceptable?

directly contradicts the actual one at the link.

Did you think nobody would notice?

That's what I do. Here is cliffnotes for the article


Clinton sez: Obama broke the pledge. (also the title)

Obama camp sez: CNN and MSNBC said they couldn't just exclude Florida. DNC chair in SC, who was an authority in constructing the pledge, gave permission.

if your candidate was this disingenuous, you'd explode.

Hillary says: Obama broke the pledge

SC chair says: Obama did not break the pledge

Are Hillary and the SC chair the same people now?



SURE THOSE TWO POSITIONS ARE CONTRADICTORY, OF COURSE! The title contradicts the article, because the Clinton camp and the SC chair contradict each other on the issue.

The agreement was between all four effected State Party Chairs and the Candidates.

All the parties to that agreement agreed on terms that they felt put sufficient teeth into the agreement to stop other states from doing what Florida did this year in the future. Those teeth were designed to include a severe disincentive for candidates to campaign inside of Florida until AFTER ALL FOUR early DNC sectioned contests were concluded. Those agreements furthermore were timed to expire AFTER the literal Florida vote, not before them.

Senator Obama and the State Chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party did not by themselves have standing to dissolve on their own an agreement arrived at by all the candidates and all four of the four effected State Chairs. Is it possible that Obama only asked the SC Party Chair because he had reason to think that the SC Chair was sympathetic to his campaign?

this is bogus spin.

Obama violated the pledge and are using Fowler as cover.

And why haven't they spoke out, or why hasn't the Clinton camp gone to them, or got a quote from them?

between all four party chairs and the candidates to end the pledge not to campaign.

There was not. Obama is the only candidate to do a national cable buy and, hence, campaign in Florida. He did so unilaterally.

He could have waited until after the Florida primary, but he chose not to.

In doing so, he violated the pledge, and the other candidates should feel free to campaign there.

campaigning entails many things, speeches, events, local ads, fliers, organizers working, etc.

Running a national ad is a FRACTION of what it means to campaign.

The other 3 states haven't made an effort to form a public common agreement, because it's a non-issue. None of them have, or will, dispute the national ad.

The airing of campaign commercials inside of Florida is clearly defined in terms of the pledge as campaigning. Fund raising efforts are not. Obama's ads are being seen inside over 6.5 million Florida homes now.

"The early state pledge was crystal clear in its prohibition against any kind of campaign activity (outside of fundraising) in states that do not adhere to the DNC calendar. There is no ambiguity. Among the list of prohibited activities are “electronic advertising that reaches a significant percentage of the voters in the aforementioned state.” (According to Nielsen, there are 6,6 million TV households in Florida that receive CNN through either local cable systems or satellite dishes. This represents 92% of all Florida TV households.)"

http://www.observer.com/2008/clinton-camp-its-obama-whos-breaking-florida-no-campaign-pledge

An agreement can always be clarified or amended by the pariticipants to that agreeement. Some agreements perhaps can be declared null and void or amended by a majority vote or some other agreed upon mechanism. In this case Obama got one our of 4 Party Chairs to side with him and seemingly did not even contact the others.

Since Obama has not even claimed to have the consent of all the relevent parties to this agreement Clinton does not even have to bring them into this. It is Obama who has a motivation to show the other Chairs agree with him on this. Silence from them is not helpful for him, and no doubt they would rather remain silent then jump further into the middle of an infra part spat that will be divisive with members of their own state parties, not if they can avoid it anyway.

How do you know the SC chair didn't consult with the other chairs before giving Obama permission? What do you need, a public hearing and debate over the issue? E-mail some people if you want answers, otherwise it clearly looks like Obama got permission, and none of the authorities argues that it violates the pledge.

You CANNOT say you know he broke the pledge and got permission. At the most, you can say it is still ambiguous and you need more information. But you can't claim you know he went against the DNC chairs, as people are already claiming they know.

Obama called attention to the SC Chair's opinion to defend his claim that it was OK to send those ads into Florida. Neither Obama nor the SC Chair has ever claimed that any of the other Chairs were consulted or agreed with that opinion. Even when this errupted into a controversy no one has even hinted that any of the other State Chair's were consulted or approved of this.

I never brought the DNC into this other than to point out that this pledge was between the 4 State Chairs and the candidates directly, not with the DNC.

If Bush approached the Security Council of the U.N to ask if it was OK to invade Iraq based on his chosen interpretation of prior U.N. Security Council resolutions, if the UK said his interpretation was correct, would that mean the Security Council gave him permission?

you haven't asked the security council. You can't assume either way.

The 4 State Pledge defined the airing of campaign ads inside Florida to be a violation of the no campaigning agreement. On it's face what Obama did was prohibited. His campaing came up with a rational that they, lets say legitimately for the sake of argument, believed gave another way of looking at the pledge's language: "A national ad contract that includes broadcasts into Florida as part of it is not the same as advertizing inside of Florida".

To my mind that is as wingnut as the theories Bush is using to justify ingnoring acts of Congress, but opinions obviously can differ. Obama's campaign at least knew enough to conclude that their reading of the pledge was potentially controversial enough that they could not just go ahead and do it on their own. Did they call the other two candidate's campaigns and ask if they also wanted to use the same interpretation as theirs? No.

More important, since the ultimate finding on that point was obviously not something they could decide on their own, did Obama's campaign consult with the parties to the agreement whose interests might be violated by pursuing those national ads? No they did not. They chose one of the four parties to consult with and acted without the input of the other effected parties. Since it is the Obama campaign that released their version of how "permission was granted", and they only mention the South Carolina Chair having been asked in advance, that is what I accept really happened barring any new forthcoming information.

If they are getting burnt by this it is the Obama camps own fault. There were two routes they could have taken instead. One would have been doing what the other candidates did; not make any arrnagement that would flood Florida houselholds with their campaign ads. The other would have been to approach all the parties to the original pledge to gain consent that their plans would not violate the pledge Obama made. It's not like there were a hundred people they would have needed to contact.

Wonder how it is all the other candidates managed to keep their ads out of FL?

I was wondering the DNC chair's policy on the national ads Obama is running, that have reached Florida.

The Clinton campaign has said it violates the pledge, but the Obama campaign said that they got permission from Carol Fowler, chairwoman of the South Carolina Democratic Party.

Do you know if Nevada, Iowa, and New Hampshire agree with Carol Fowler's statement that national ads should have been allowed, even if they reached Florida? Did you consult with the other DNC chairs and agree that the national ad should be allowed, before they started to run?