The Daily Background

Remember way back much of the Kennedy family endorsed Obama? The Clinton campaign’s response was to roll out the endorsement of a lesser known Kennedy, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (pictured above far right), RFK’s daughter and an unsuccessful Gubernatorial candidate in Maryland. They trumpeted her support as a big deal and evidence that the family was split (although Bill Clinton had quietly tried to convince Ted not to endorse at all because they were scared of him endorsing Obama).

Anyway, now Townsend is openly predicting that Obama will win the nomination– and she’s quite frank about the fact that the Clinton campaign has ignored her advice:

“Townsend said she expects Sen. Barack Obama to win the Democratic presidential nomination and that Clinton is finished. She believed that the Wisconsin results demonstrated that Clinton’s coalition (voters over the age of 50 and those earning less than $50,000) had fallen apart. When asked why the Clinton campaign had failed, Ms. Townsend had plenty of opinions and she placed significant blame on Bill Clinton and his racially tinged statements in South Carolina. She also felt that Clinton made a tactical error in making “experience and inevitability” her central campaign themes. Townsend argued that Clinton had little more experience than Obama and far less than candidates such as Senators Dodd and Biden. Additionally, making the inevitability claim hurt her when she lost Iowa… Townsend then lamented Clinton’s decision to go negative and question Obama’s readiness. She said that she called the Clinton campaign and advised that they ‘go out on a high note’ but her advice was politely dismissed.”

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog