McCain Team v. Obama Team on Public Financing
19 June 2008 4:19 pm by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
updated
Copy of email I received earlier that went to McCain camp (Halperin just put it up as well):
Jill – hope you’re well. We’d like to add our campaign counsel, Bob Bauer to your conference call with Trevor Potter so that we can arbitrate some of the disagreements that the two of them have over the meeting they recently had. If you can please shoot me the dial-in, Bob is available to join for the first bit, go over his notes from the meeting with Mr. Potter and would be happy to take questions from him, the press corps or whomever. Sorry for the late notice.
We’re of course willing to split the cost of the call.
Via Halperin, McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker sends an email reply to Obama spokesman Bill Burton:
“As to the stunt — a last minute email to me — I only have this to say: that type of boys club bullying embodies an arrogance better suited for a frat house than a serious campaign about serious issues.”
Seems a bit over the top to me.
Anyway… Just finished a quickly arranged conference call with the Obama team on the public financing back and forth.
Above is the McCain camp’s call. Oh, and by the way, they’ve evidently gotten nervous about me being included now. So after a warm welcome they’ve frozen me out. I’ve got an email into Patrick Hynes on it. I covered the first call I was on with McCain totally fairly, more so than many, actually. It’s not exactly in keeping with McCain’s reach out. That Clinton supporters are actually considering voting for McCain is another reason to have me on, but someone got cold feet. UPDATE: Heard back from Patrick. Computer crash, it seems, has caused this glitch in inclusion in the calls, etc. I’ll be connected once Patrick is again.
On the Obama call, about that meeting with Bauer and Trevor Potter: “There are aspects
of this conversation that he reports quite differently than my notes reflect.”
What’s developed today is a bit of a war over what exactly happened in a meeting between Bauer and Potter. Bauer insists that the Obama campaign did all they could on the issue, but got tired of waiting for the McCain team to respond.
Mark Halperin’s take of the call: On latest conference media conference call, Obama lawyer Bauer deflects repeated questions about whether limited efforts to strike a deal matched Obama’s pledge — but he suggests they were sufficient and all that was required.
Whatever you want to say about it now this is the correct move for Obama. He should never have “promised” anything other in the beginning, which is why he’s in this position. I warned this would happen from the start.
That McCain is preening about hating 527s is laughable. It’s like saying nice things about Clinton once it turned out he needed her supporters’ votes. Situational ethics.
I know, you’re shocked.
