(Photo credit: Associated Press/Ron Edmonds)
Barack Obama's presidential campaign is facing an onslaught of criticism from the Indian-American community after it released a memo Friday tying Hillary Clinton's stance on outsourcing to her and her husband's financial dealings with businesses in India. The memo, released on the condition that it not be attributed to the Obama campaign, called the former First Lady "Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)."
Obama said Monday the memo was a "dumb mistake." He told Rediff.com, a prominent Indian news site, in an interview published today that he was "furious" when he heard about the memo. "Obama acknowledged he had no idea about the document that was being circulated by some members of his campaign staff till the controversy erupted, when the Indian-American community was in uproar and his Indian-American supporters contacted his campaign expressing their concern," Rediff.com reported.
"We are taking corrective action to make sure that people understand how this could be potentially hurtful," Obama told Rediff.com.
Apart from this rebuke from a prominent political action committee, reactions from Indian news sites included headlines like this one, "Obama attacks Indian community."
Obama's trying to make amends, but the three days that passed between the memo's initial release and his public response have probably left some lasting damage.
The group South Asians for Obama (SAFO) is sure ticked off.
Scathing reader comments dominated its message board Monday.
"Pretty stupid thing for Obama's campaign to do. I mean, does this campaign realize that the Indian American community in this country is very financially viable and politically active? I bet they just lot a lot of their votes," read one.
"What really bothers me is that a (D-Israel), (R-Vatican) or (D-Mexico) would have triggered an immediate apology. We deserve the same connsideration (sic)," said another.
"I'm sorry, but my allegiance will probably have to switch. I mean, '(D-Punjab)'? That is not just offensive, it's immature. With a wife who works in politics, I know that a message like that comes from the top down. And all an apology will mean is 'we're sorry this got out.' Obama lost a voter and a donor in me." This by someone signed "Vijay."
Read the full Obama campaign memo here.
Here's the NYT:
"Shortly after the Clinton campaign released the financial information, the campaign of Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, circulated to news organizations — on what it demanded be a not-for-attribution-basis — a scathing analysis. It called Mrs. Clinton “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)” in its headline. The document referred to the investment in India and Mrs. Clinton’s fund-raising efforts among Indian-Americans. The analysis also highlighted the acceptance by Mr. Clinton of $300,000 in speech fees from Cisco, a company the Obama campaign said has moved American jobs to India.
A copy of the document was obtained by Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, which provided it to The New York Times. The Clinton campaign has long been frustrated by the effort by Mr. Obama to present his campaign as above the kind of attack politics that Mr. Obama and his aides say has led to widespread disillusionment with politics by many Americans.
Asked about the document, Bill Burton, a spokesman for Mr. Obama, said: 'We did give reporters a series of comments she made on the record and other things that are publicly available to anyone who has access to the Internet. I don’t see why anyone would take umbrage with that.'
Asked why the Obama campaign had initially insisted that it not be connected to the document, Mr. Burton replied, 'I’m going to leave my comment at that.'"
Here's more from Rediff.com's "exclusive interview" with Obama Monday:
"Asked what kind of corrective measures he intended to put in place, the Illinois Senator asserted, 'The main thing is just to make certain that anything that goes out under my name or goes out under our campaign's name -- whether it's for attribution or otherwise -- is screened by all senior staff to make sure that we don't make mistakes like this in the first place.'
'The other thing I am obviously doing is reaching out to all my supporters in the Indian-American community to assure them this isn't reflective of my views,' he said.
Obama said he hoped that 'people recognise that this is just an anomalous situation as opposed to any more serious issue in terms of my grasp and understanding of the importance of the Indian-American community and the relationship between the United States and India.'
In a message to the mushrooming South Asians for Obama chapters across the US, the majority of whom are young second-generation Indian Americans, Obama said, 'I want them to know how much I appreciate their support, I want them to know how much their involvement means to our campaign.'"
Daily Kos doesn't think Obama's snafu will get mass attention but that it will stick with Indian-Americans.
"They may be small, but they are not tiny, numbering almost 1% of the population. They are also the best educated and wealthiest group of any national origin in the U.S. They thus have a fair amount of money to give to politics, if they wish, and I assume that this kind of comment would spread far and fast among the politically influential people in this community."
Obama's Web site has no whiff of the controversy, so Kos is probably right about this staying confined to a select community. It's hardly a "macaca moment," as some bloggers suggest.
Meanwhile, I can't seem to find a story mentioning as much as a peep out of Hillary Clinton's campaign in response. Not that her campaign needs to do anything except sit back and watch.
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