2008 Woodie Awards
2008 candidates start slandering
Clinton appears to be losing the boxing match to Obama, McCain is beating himself up
Jon Miller
Issue date:
2/27/08
Section:
Campus
The 2008 presidential election is getting heated with candidates in both parties taking hits.
In a Democratic debate in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 21, Sen. Hillary Clinton accused her opponent of plagiarizing passages of his speech, and said at a debate in Texas, "That's not change we can believe in, that's change you can Xerox."
But the resulting boos from the crowd after Clinton's comment made it clear that Sen. Barack Obama is gaining a lot of favor.
Obama explained that the alleged plagiarized speech was actually just two lines that one of his supporters, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, gave Obama to use.
After the Texas debate, many analysts said Clinton was only given applause near the end of the debate after she alluded to the possibility that Obama is the likely candidate to face-off against the Republican candidate in November.
For the Republican frontrunner Sen. John McCain, accusations have become more serious than borrowed words.
A story published in The New York Times on Feb. 21 alleges the senator may have been sexually involved with lobbyist Vicki Iseman.
Unlike the sexual scandal that shook the White House during the 1990s, this affair may have violated some serious regulations regarding conflict of interest.
Supposedly, McCain met privately with some of Iseman's clients while he was serving on the commerce committee. McCain told some of these clients that he would help make sure the committee passed certain measures that would financially benefit Iseman's clients.
Although McCain and Iseman deny a romantic affair ever took place between them, they cannot reject the fact that they spent a significant amount of time close to each other.
The problem is McCain confessed in his memoir that he did write two letters for Lowell Paxson, a client of Iseman who regularly loaned his private jet to McCain, to the Federal Communications Commission. In the letters, McCain asks the FCC to allow a company to control television stations in over-lapping markets.
McCain claims he wrote the letters because the issue was moving too slowly. But it was not Paxson but Iseman who requested the letters to be written.
Critics alledge that the letters were done as a favor for Iseman because of McCain's romantic involvement with her.
Regardless of how close the two were, the evidence of McCain's favortism towards Iseman's clients will likely hurt his chances at the White House.
Since the Republicans have virtually been in a single candidate race lately, it is not likely that Gov. Mike Huckabee will be able to challenge either of the Democrats for the presidency.
In a Democratic debate in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 21, Sen. Hillary Clinton accused her opponent of plagiarizing passages of his speech, and said at a debate in Texas, "That's not change we can believe in, that's change you can Xerox."
But the resulting boos from the crowd after Clinton's comment made it clear that Sen. Barack Obama is gaining a lot of favor.
Obama explained that the alleged plagiarized speech was actually just two lines that one of his supporters, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, gave Obama to use.
After the Texas debate, many analysts said Clinton was only given applause near the end of the debate after she alluded to the possibility that Obama is the likely candidate to face-off against the Republican candidate in November.
For the Republican frontrunner Sen. John McCain, accusations have become more serious than borrowed words.
A story published in The New York Times on Feb. 21 alleges the senator may have been sexually involved with lobbyist Vicki Iseman.
Unlike the sexual scandal that shook the White House during the 1990s, this affair may have violated some serious regulations regarding conflict of interest.
Supposedly, McCain met privately with some of Iseman's clients while he was serving on the commerce committee. McCain told some of these clients that he would help make sure the committee passed certain measures that would financially benefit Iseman's clients.
Although McCain and Iseman deny a romantic affair ever took place between them, they cannot reject the fact that they spent a significant amount of time close to each other.
The problem is McCain confessed in his memoir that he did write two letters for Lowell Paxson, a client of Iseman who regularly loaned his private jet to McCain, to the Federal Communications Commission. In the letters, McCain asks the FCC to allow a company to control television stations in over-lapping markets.
McCain claims he wrote the letters because the issue was moving too slowly. But it was not Paxson but Iseman who requested the letters to be written.
Critics alledge that the letters were done as a favor for Iseman because of McCain's romantic involvement with her.
Regardless of how close the two were, the evidence of McCain's favortism towards Iseman's clients will likely hurt his chances at the White House.
Since the Republicans have virtually been in a single candidate race lately, it is not likely that Gov. Mike Huckabee will be able to challenge either of the Democrats for the presidency.
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