Maggie North of Claremont told Obama he risks becoming part of the usual political scene if he keeps being drawn into well-publicized disputes with rivals. He and chief rival Hillary Rodham Clinton have jabbed at each other over foreign policy, the war on terrorism and the use of nuclear weapons.

“You can be it,” North said at a small gathering at a Hanover restaurant Monday morning that drew eight people. “But you’ve got to stop – excuse me for being blunt – you’ve got to stop getting involved in the way people are fighting each other, chewing you up a little more.”
“That’s what you do when you run for president,” Obama responded, getting a laugh. – Associated Press

I’ve actually been writing for months in this blog about how I felt Senator Barack Obama was setting himself up for a dilemma. His rhetoric is about “hope, change, uniting not dividing” which is great for lifting people up and making yourself seem above the fray. The problem? Sooner or later to win a political fight you have to get into the mud and when you do you alienate everyone who got you there.

Meanwhile Elizabeth Edwards also made a comment about Obama’s record and rhetoric. On the Iraq War:

And while Senator Barack Obama, D-Ill., was in the Illinois state legislature and not the Senate in 2003, Mrs. Edwards equally questioned his motives.

“Obama gives a speech that’s likely to be extraordinarily popular in his home district,” Edwards said, “and then comes to the Senate and votes for funding… so you are going to get people behaving in a holier-than-thou way.” From ABC News

She also said:

“You listen to the language of what people say, particularly Obama, who seems to be using a lot of John’s 2004 language, which is maybe not surprisingly since one of his speechwriters was one of our speechwriters, his media guy was our media guy. These people know John’s mantra as well as anybody could know it.”

Elizabeth Edwards went after Clinton in the article as well but frankly she has been doing that since day one. I am particularly interested in her movement against Obama. After the debates I noted how it seemed like Obama & Edwards were united against Clinton and then Obama, feeling the energy in the room turn against Edwards quickly left his fellow candidate out to dry on the Clinton attacks.

All very interesting.