Obama defends his borrowing of Patrick rhetoric
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Taking aim at one of Senator Barack Obama's greatest campaign strengths - his ability to move voters with a powerful speech - Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign yesterday accused Obama of plagiarizing words from his friend and political ally, Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.
"Senator Obama is running on the strength of his rhetoric and the strength of his promises and, as we have seen in the last couple of days, he's breaking his promises and his rhetoric isn't his own," Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, told reporters in a conference call.
Obama, as the Globe detailed in an April 2007 article, has periodically used themes and even direct lines that echo speeches by Patrick, including the one cited yesterday by Clinton's campaign. Obama's campaign manager, David Axelrod, also worked closely with Patrick in his successful effort in 2006 to become the Bay State's first African-American governor.
Obama used Patrick language again recently, remarking at a Milwaukee dinner on Saturday night that it was not true that "words don't matter."
" 'I have a dream' - just words? 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' - just words?" Obama said at the event in Wisconsin, which holds a primary today. Those lines, referring to a famous speech by civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and the Declaration of Independence, are very similar to statements Patrick uttered during his 2006 campaign.
Patrick, who has endorsed the senator from Illinois and is campaigning for him, shrugged off the controversy last night as "a tempest in a teapot," while Obama acknowledged earlier yesterday that he should have credited his friend, but added that he and Patrick agreed not only on many issues but on the language to describe them.
"There are always candidates out there who will trivialize the ability of Barack Obama to mobilize people and energize people" with language, Patrick told the Globe.
"I said that to him in the summer and a couple of days ago on the phone. Great leadership historically has been about people who were able - as John Kennedy said of Winston Churchill - to put the English language to use. . . . People know they are words spoken from the heart with conviction, and when they are the right words, it is a call to action."
In a statement issued earlier in the day, the Massachusetts governor said: "Senator Obama and I are longtime friends and allies. We often share ideas about politics, policy, and language. The argument in question, on the value of words in the public square, is one about which he and I have spoken frequently before. Given the recent attacks from Senator Clinton, I applaud him responding in just the way he did."
Obama said Patrick was aware of his use of the governor's verbiage.
"I was on the stump. He had suggested that we use these lines and I thought they were good lines," Obama told reporters yesterday on a trip to Ohio before returning to Wisconsin.
Further, Obama added, the senator from New York has borrowed from him also, including a couple of his signature phrases.
"I really don't think this is too big of a deal," Obama said. "When Senator Clinton says 'It's time to turn the page' in one of her stump speeches or says she's 'fired up and ready to go,' I don't think that anybody suggests that she's not focused on the issues that she's focused on."
Politicians commonly pick up on each other's themes and even words, especially if they see the approach is working. Former senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska was an early proponent of healthcare reform in 1992, but it was Bill Clinton who developed the idea into a central campaign theme and won his race to the White House in large part because of it.
While Obama has made "change" a buzzword of his campaign, Clinton, along with former senator John Edwards of North Carolina and Republicans Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee, have thrown around the popular word on the trail.
The Clinton campaign's accusation comes at a time when the two colleagues are locked in a close battle for the nomination. Obama is favored to win today's contest in Hawaii, where he grew up, while polls in Wisconsin's Democratic race show him with a smaller lead there.
Both campaigns are fighting hard ahead of the March 4 contests in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Clinton, who has won a strong majority of low-income voters in most primaries, is believed by political analysts to have an edge in Ohio, which is struggling economically. Clinton's popularity among Latinos also may give her an edge in Texas, although a poll released yesterday showed her just two percentage points ahead of Obama.
Obama yesterday dismissed charges that he was, as Clinton put it at a Texas rally last week, "all hat and no cattle," saying he has been able to energize new voters with his speeches.
"I make no apologies for being able to talk good," Obama told a crowd of about 6,000 at Youngstown State University, drawing chuckles at the deliberate grammatical error.
Obama repeated his stump speech line about being labeled a "hope-monger," but before the Youngstown crowd, he made an admission: "Actually, I made up the hope-mongering," Obama said, owning up to embellishing the criticism of his campaign theme.
Andrea Estes of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 