It’s no secret that the Obama campaign was worried about Bill Clinton’s status as a “loose cannon” when they were considering Hillary Clinton as a potential vice-presidential candidate. But confirmation of that rumor is only one of the revelations in Richard Wolffe’s book Renegade that is likely to irritate the former president. According to the book, Obama also told Wolffe that he faced a unique hurdle during his campaign that most candidates did not have to deal with. “We had to figure out how to deal with a former president who was just lying, engaging in bald-faced lies,” Obama reportedly said, during the lead-up to the caucuses in Nevada. Clinton had just quoted him as saying: “Republicans have had all the good ideas.” What Obama actually said was: “The Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last ten, fifteen years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.” Which, to be fair, is a pretty naked potshot at Clinton, but not an argument that the GOP was smarter, particularly. Elsewhere in Renegade, Obama admits that Clinton got into his head during the campaign. “But,” he added. “I got into his.”
OBAMA BRANDED BILL CLINTON A ‘LIAR’ DURING ‘08 CAMPAIGN [NYP]
