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Clinton: Obama will win 'pretty handily'

Posted by Scott Helman, Political Reporter September 11, 2008 02:24 PM

Speaking briefly with reporters before their private lunch today in New York, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton voiced optimism about Obama's chances in the fall.

The two leading Democrats, whose relationship was less-than-warm during Obama's tough fight with Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, dined together at Clinton's Harlem office. Asked for his assessment of the race, Clinton said, "I predict that Senator Obama will win and win pretty handily."

Clinton, who is headed to Florida this month to campaign for Obama, said he would do whatever else is asked of him. "We're putting him to work," Obama said, adding, "He knows a little something about politics."

Hillary Clinton will campaign for Obama in Ohio Sunday.

UPDATE: Obama's campaign released a joint statement from spokesmen for the two men. "They discussed the campaign briefly, but mostly talked about how the world has changed since Sept. 11, 2001," the statement said. "They also spoke about what the next president can do to help make the economy work for all Americans, as it did under President Clinton, and ensure safety and prosperity far beyond the coming the election. President Clinton said he looks forward to campaigning for Senator Obama later this month.”

19 comments so far...
  1. Great, the Clintons was once very well respected by the African American Community and we would like to have that relationship back. We stood with them during his difficult times and now the Africam American Community needs them to stand with Barack. We are all Democrats. Like Family we argue, fuss and fight but no one outside that family has the right to speak on anything that goes on within that family whether they see it or hear it and any outsider that speaks against my family we attack whoever attacks our family . Republicans Mind your own affairs and stop lying.

    Posted by Betty Leake September 11, 08 03:13 PM
  1. Oh boy, Slick Willie is going to campaign for Barack Obama, now that is what I call credibility, yes sir. Gee, Bill, do you get to explain our failure to respond to the USS Cole, the first World Trade Center Bombing or the "dot.com" investment swindles that put us into near recession in 2000? How about your corrupt AG (Reno) who only investigated crimes "after" all of the evidence was in (aren't criminal "investigations" conducted to actually "find" evidence?) Maybe your crowd can advise Obama now that his campaign finance managers have been exposed as being connected to sub-prime mortgage lending companies (oops...so much for that community organizer shtick..eh?) . Oh well, at least you aren't Jimmy Carter.

    Posted by marc christophe September 11, 08 03:23 PM
  1. Great, the Clintons was once very well respected by the African American Community and we would like to have that relationship back. We stood with them during his difficult times and now the Africam American Community needs them to stand with Barack. We are all Democrats. Like Family we argue, fuss and fight but no one outside that family has the right to speak on anything that goes on within that family whether they see it or hear it and any outsider that speaks against my family we attack whoever attacks our family . Republicans Mind your own affairs and stop lying.

    Posted by Betty Leake September 11, 08 03:24 PM
  1. God Bless Bill and Hillary Clinton. The world wants Barack Obama to win this race and currently we look pretty foolish in the world's eyes by letting the McCain and Rove style tactics undermine the future of the United States and free world.

    Posted by Julie-Sioux City, IA September 11, 08 03:28 PM
  1. What a relief! We need Bill and Hillary as much as we need Obama. Let’s follow ideas from the M/P duet. Go together on campaign and win. You look so much better (clever) than this superficial hybrid. People, be serious, we are sinking and you get excited about Palin’s glasses? What about her qualification as a mother? What about her potential function as a VP, or even worse, president? It is scary. Wake up fast. Bill/ Hillary, we people from Arkansas, are very proud of you. Specially, for what you are doing for Obama! We know he will have incredible functions for you in our new life. We need to see and hear all three of you. Good luck, we all need it!

    Posted by Dr. Anna Radominska-Pandya September 11, 08 03:28 PM
  1. Bill Clinton has this one wrong. Obama will not even win Massachusettes. Most thinking people do not vote for reac baiting sexist candidates when they see it and this guy has been playing the game too long now for thinking women to vote for him. I am a lifelong democrat that will vote McCain/Palin 2008 and hope the DNC learns a lesson before the next election. HILLAY 2012

    Posted by Jodi September 11, 08 03:35 PM
  1. Barach Hussein Obama was a Community Organizer in Chicago. He was not elected or appointed by the mayor to that position. So how did he get the position he claims started him in his political career?

    It is a quantum leap from community advisor to his current junior senator position.

    And the most astounding change in his carrer path is challenging John Mc Cain for the presidency with no foreign relations experience to call his own.

    What is really hillarious is his criticism of Senior Senator John Mc Cain acievements and Mrs Palins' experience as a govenor of the State of Alaska.

    He may not have common sense but Barach sure has the tenacity of a junk yard dog.

    Posted by Johns Son September 11, 08 05:12 PM
  1. Barach Hussein Obama was a Community Organizer in Chicago. He was not elected or appointed by the mayor to that position. So how did he get the position he claims started him in his political career?

    It is a quantum leap from community advisor to his current junior senator position.

    And the most astounding change in his carrer path is challenging John Mc Cain for the presidency with no foreign relations experience to call his own.

    What is really hillarious is his criticism of Senior Senator John Mc Cain acievements and Mrs Palins' experience as a govenor of the State of Alaska.

    He may not have common sense but Barach sure has the tenacity of a junk yard dog.

    Posted by john son September 11, 08 05:15 PM
  1. I hope all of you that plan to vote for McCain can hunker down and suck it up over the next 4 years because it ain't going to be pretty boys if he does win with "on personalities not issues'".


    Posted by Pauline Burkhart September 11, 08 07:07 PM
  1. C'mon Bill, stop shuckin' us or should I say stop bamboozling us? Drop that cup of koolaid!

    Where was Michelle, who wants to be our next first lady, today on 9/11? At home out of sight, I guess. Bambi looked lost.

    McCain/Palin 2008


    Posted by PJ D September 11, 08 08:33 PM
  1. I don't know what else you can expect from President Clinton? Kudos to Bill and Hilary!

    Posted by gaoban September 12, 08 01:29 AM
  1. The Clintons are playing nice with the Dems now because it is pretty certain that Obama is going to lose the election. So when Hillary runs again in 2012, she will have the full support of the Dem Party. Smart move!

    Posted by mk September 12, 08 07:46 AM
  1. palin is a silly choice and most americans won't take her seriously because she has no credibility and no serious for experience for a job of this magnitude. most woman won't vote for her just because she is a woman they are more about the issues and palin certainly speaks for a minority of woman who care about healthcare, education and the future economy of this nation.

    Posted by jim September 12, 08 08:36 AM
  1. Obama/Biden 08!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Posted by Vegas September 13, 08 01:14 AM
  1. I can't believe that you people would even consider putting John McCain in office knowing that he is against minimum wage increase, will make you pay tax on your health insurance payments, will try and take away a woman's right to choose and more than likely take us to war again with Iran. If the hate for Blacks are this strong then we will get exactly what we ask for 4 more years of George Bush politics and all of barely surviving. How stupid and hateful America is!

    Posted by F. Rose September 13, 08 11:55 AM
  1. I live in Alaska, and Women are being called maggots and being threatned by the Republican thugs, because they are planning Mass Protest against Sarah Palin and her Anti Women Policies, of No Right to choice after rape, and forcing women to pay for rape kits. Her thirst for killing of wilderness animals for oil. Her teaching abstinence only, while her daughter is a pregnant teen. She actually herself forced women to pay for rape kits up to $1200, so women stopped reporting rapes. She fired our public safety commissioner, so other women can get beat up and raped. She cut funding for teens who are pregnant. She is all the hatred for women wrapped up in one Woman. Mccain will loose. More women will in the end vote against her then vote for her. Also Bob barr will take votes and Ron Paul.

    Posted by Marlene September 13, 08 04:49 PM
  1. Subject: Eve Ensler on Sarah Palin

    Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist
    best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following. (This is an exerpt) " I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. It will determine whether America is a free open society or a closed place of
    fear, fundamentalism and agression."

    fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

    whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of

    fear, fundamentalism and aggression.


    has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense

    with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an

    environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and

    might very well be the next president of the United States. She would

    govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

    inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

    the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls

    options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence

    and war.

    '';.....,their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have

    never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that

    they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar

    bears.

    I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life

    trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence

    against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the

    Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people

    who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of

    Feminists.

    But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical

    to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving

    the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls

    options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence

    and war.

    I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous

    choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates

    the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas

    that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the

    impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately,

    this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the

    inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

    Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.

    In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets

    better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting

    of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the

    pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is

    fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The

    earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves

    and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be

    taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she

    said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

    Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women

    who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should

    have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or

    not.

    She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I

    imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many

    babies that makes.

    Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she

    has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense

    with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an

    environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and

    might very well be the next president of the United States. She would

    govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

    Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting

    rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot

    hundreds of wolves from the air.

    Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private

    right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when

    war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in

    his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the

    undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

    I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this

    election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the

    future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine

    whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever

    uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards

    dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence

    through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we

    go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in

    alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It

    will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or

    whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine

    whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of

    fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

    If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your

    power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the

    hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of

    teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction.

    I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force

    mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity

    or dissent. I think of pain.

    Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the

    floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between

    nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing

    we call life?

    Eve Ensler

    September 5, 2008

    Posted by JoAnne September 14, 08 08:56 AM
  1. The educated people of this country are going to win this election ....the educated ones.....the ones looking at the best choice for leadership of this country, and even the world......This time around we the people will get it right.....we're going to re-claim the White House with a president BY the people and FOR the people. This election belongs to the educated Americans who can't be fooled anymore with religious dogma as a platform......we can't be fooled anymore that a cowboy mentality should rule.....we need a president who leads for the good of the whole, not just for the richest among us. We need a president (and vice-president) who can be trusted with nuclear codes. We need INTELLIGENCE and DIPLOMACY.......
    these are dangerous times we live in......in the words of Martin Luther King: "If we don't learn to live together as brothers, we will perish together as fools."

    Posted by Genie (Louisiana) September 14, 08 03:52 PM
  1. If that is not the Kiss of Death, I don't know what is?

    Posted by roberto September 19, 08 07:29 PM
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About political intelligence Field reports from Boston Globe reporters and editors covering the 2008 presidential campaign and the national maneuvering of Bay State politicians.

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