The Chink in the Armor
Rich writes a very good column about Obama and his prospects and addresses the Lincoln comparisons in a fairly rational manner.
He also brings up the chief problem for many right now–the Rezko house deal.
I think Obama has handled the fall out from a dumb decision to get involved with Rezko at all relatively well. He’s answered the questions in long form and tried to be relatively transparent, but the next step is needed and that step is for the press to do interviews with the people who sold the house and for the Obama camp to release to the press all of the paperwork they have on the deal.
The only part of the deal that seems to be at issue is that the house sold for less than asking price while the lot sold for asking price. Obama indicates the land and house were listed separately–find the listings and provide those. Confirm with the buyers that they insisted on closing on the same day. Then go and find whomever bid on the lot at $625,000 and do two things–confirm the bid and make sure it was a real potential buyer. Finally, find out who else bid on the house—there was apparently another bid and confirm that it was lower than what Obama bid. If these things are confirmed, the story stands relatively well and assuming there aren’t any other types of transactions that show up, the story dies.
There’s no real doubt to me that Rezko was trying to influence Obama and for that is where Obama made his mistake in buying the strip of land–even though he paid twice as much as the assessed valuation. And Obama admits that. However, the real test is to see if the story holds up regarding other bids on the two properties and if it does then Obama comes out looking like a guy making a mistake, but not a crook.
Krol brings up that Clinton will go negative on it and he’s probably right. Except one thing that such an ad let’s Team Obama do–retaliate and I’ll take one house purchase deal over Whitewater and cattle futures. While both turned out to be less than what the investigations tried to make of them, they certainly provide fodder for far harsher commercials on Hillary’s ethics than anything she can dish up on Obama. It would be a dumb strategic move to pull out the ethics card and give the Democratic field an excuse to go after her. That doesn’t mean her consultants won’t do it, but it’ll be dumb when they do.
December 8th, 2006 at
I for one look foreward to Obama meeting tht wood chipper called the Clinton Political Machine.
Let’s see what he looks like when he comes out shall we?
December 10th, 2006 at
If I were to bet, my bet would be that if this comes up as a campaign commercial it won’t be directly from Hillary, but from someone else in the field or a “new” group. Obama could be leading the pack then – so that could be part of the motivation. Regardless, it may or may not be that somebody does it for Hillary. Last cycle Gephardt and Kerry people banded together to attack Dean with the newly created for the ’cause’ 527 “Americans for Jobs, Health Care and Progressive Values.” There is potential for irony in that current Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, a former John Kerry presidential spokesman, was the spokesman for the 527 group. I suppose on the upside, Gibbs is experienced in how these things work. One hopes for Obama’s sake they’re prepared.
December 11th, 2006 at
He is guilty, and he is basically corrupt. I just wish people would come to terms with the hypocrisy.
December 11th, 2006 at
I agree that it looks best if all the paperwork shows what you outlined, but if the seller rejected a higher bid to accept Obama’s bid for the house, that doesn’t necessarily make it worse for Obama. he is not likely to have known about the amount of the other bid and certainly had no reponsibility for the seller’s action. the seller may have been willing to leave a couple dollars on the table to have bragging rights for having dealt with such a celebrity on such a matter.
December 11th, 2006 at
He is guilty, and he is basically corrupt. I just wish people would come to terms with the hypocrisy.
You are an evil little swine; Of course, you’re probably Republican, which would make you a Satan-worshipper as well.
In case you’re wondering, I have as much basis for my statement as you do for yours, but mine is more likely to be correct.