Advisor: Can’t Unilaterally Renegotiate NAFTA
It’s one thing for a candidate to tack to the center after winning a primary. It’s not a surprise. Primary and general election voter pools are different. An emphasis on certain issues in one race works better than in the other. Voters have seen the pattern of Presidential candidates running to the much middle in a host of elections.
On free trade Sen. Barack Obama isn’t just running he’s going an Olympic sprint away from his tough anti-NAFTA stance he had in the primaries. In February Sen. Barack Obama said he’d use the “hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage” to renegotiate NAFTA:
At the same time his economic adviser Austan Goolsbee privately told Canadian officials Obama’s talk was political bluster. “Just words.”
In the Ohio primary Obama’s campaign sent out flyers proclaiming the Illinois Senator “consistently opposed NAFTA.”
Now, an Obama advisor says there won’t be a unilateral renegotiation of NAFTA:
Here’s a partial transcript:
Obama advisor Linda Douglass: “You can’t open up negotiations unilaterally. What he has said, he certainly wants to speak when he’s president of the United States, to Canada and Mexico to see about strengthening NAFTA.
More audacity from the Obama campaign. It looks like the hammer got thrown under the bus as well.
UPDATE: Ed Morrissey thinks Linda Douglass was off her game:
Douglas would have been better advised to stick to the new Obama position, which is that he engaged in typical overheated rhetoric like any other politician. Perhaps Douglas has problems in keeping pace with the reversals issued by Obama — haven’t we all? — but as a senior adviser, one would expect her to have the playbook du jour.
Another staffer letting Obama down. Can someone help him find some good help?
