A Clinton-Obama Slugfest

Hillary Clinton (in Brokaw book): When he had those big tax cuts and they went too far, he oversaw the largest tax increase. He could call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and then negotiate arms-control agreements. He played the balance and the music beautifully.

And here's Bill Clinton in 1998 at the dedication of the Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.:

Bill Clinton (May 5, 1998): The only thing that could make this day more special is if President Reagan could be here himself. But if you look at this atrium, I think we feel the essence of his presence: his unflagging optimism, his proud patriotism, his unabashed faith in the American people. I think every American who walks through this incredible space and lifts his or her eyes to the sky will feel that.

We'll leave it to others to decide who's praising Reagan more. The fact is that Bill and Hillary have done it, not just Obama.

To Their Health
Clinton charged that Obama's position has shifted on health care, from favoring a single-payer, universal system when he was a Senate candidate to the plan he favors now, which would provide access to health insurance for all but wouldn't require it. Obama denied that he had ever said he would work to get a single-payer plan. We score this round for Clinton.

Clinton: Secondly, we have seen once again a kind of evolution here. When Senator Obama ran for the Senate, he was for single-payer and said he was for single-payer if we could get a Democratic president and Democratic Congress. As time went on, the last four or so years, he said he was for single-payer in principle, then he was for universal health care. And then his policy is not, it is not universal. ...

Obama: I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer. What I said was that if I were starting from scratch, if we didn't have a system in which employers had typically provided health care, I would probably go with a single-payer system.

But Obama's denial doesn't hold up. In a speech to the AFL-CIO in 2003, when he was setting up his run for the Senate, Obama said:

Obama (June, 30, 2003): I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, is spending 14 percent, 14 percent, of its gross national product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see. And as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, we have to take back the House.

That sounds to us like someone who's pretty gung-ho for a single-payer plan. But after Democrats captured control of both the House and Senate in 2006, Obama tempered his position. He said in a New Yorker interview last year:

Obama (in The New Yorker, May 7, 2007): If you're starting from scratch, then a single-payer system ... would probably make sense. But we've got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition ... would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that's not so disruptive.

But that was 2007, not when he was running for the Senate, which is what Clinton was referring to.

"Took a Pass?"
Clinton was mostly right when she attacked Obama for casting  130 "present" votes as an Illinois state senator. But she was wrong when she added, "the Chicago Tribune, his hometown paper, said that all of those present votes was taking a pass. It was for political reasons."

It's true that Obama voted "present" nearly 130 times, rather than casting a yes or no vote, an option in the state Legislature. But let's straighten out the sourcing of the article that said he "essentially took a pass" when he cast those votes. That one was written by Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, in a Feb. 14, 2007, opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, not the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune story, which ran in December, did quote Bonnie Grabenhofer, president of Illinois National Organization of Women as saying, "When we needed someone to take a stand, Senator Obama took a pass." But those weren't the words of the Tribune itself. And Grabenhofer was endorsing Clinton at the time.

Beyond that, there's some substance to Clinton's general criticism. Obama says some of his votes were part of intricate parliamentary maneuvering, not just avoiding political heat. The New York Times examined the issue in December and found a mixed record: "Sometimes the 'present' votes were in line with instructions from Democratic leaders or because he objected to provisions in bills that he might otherwise support," the paper reported. "At other times, Mr. Obama voted present on questions that had overwhelming bipartisan support. In at least a few cases, the issue was politically sensitive."