RUSH: Operation Chaos continued last night on CNN. Wolf Blitzer was on The Situation Room, talking with James Carville, who is a Hillary advisor; and also Barack Obama advisor Tom Daschle. Blitzer says, ‘Hey, James, what about the argument that Senator Daschle makes here that there would be disenfranchised voters if you don’t have these two do-overs?’
CARVILLE: You have a primary, you let people vote. Have a Democratic primary! Let Democrats vote. Anybody that’s watching this show can see that I, and Senator Clinton, want to have a primary and let people in Michigan decide! Anybody can see — as good a man as Senator Daschle is and as fine as Senator Obama is — they don’t have it because they would lose it!
DASCHLE: (softly trying to interrupt)
CARVILLE: And that’s the wrong signal to send out. He doesn’t want to have this for a simple fact he would lose, just like he would lose in Florida. Now, if the Democratic nominee is afraid to face a primary of Democratic voters, can you imagine what the general election would be like?
DASCHLE: Well, that’s the —
CARVILLE: Senator Obama ought to show strength, and say, ‘You know what? I want to run this thing,’ and put up half the money.
RUSH: Okay, so Carville just said Obama’s a coward. Daschle’s a coward. They don’t have the guts to rerun Michigan and Florida because they know that Obama would lose. Blitzer said to the Puffster, ‘Those are some strong words out there, Tom Daschle.’
DASCHLE: They are strong words, and they’re totally wrong. They’re totally wrong. He doesn’t know whether we’d win or lose. We’ve won more states than Hillary across the country. All over the country. We can probably win that one as well. We’re not backing away from a contest. We’ve been involved in contests all over — the real question is do you allow everybody to vote? The Clinton people say no. Do you, can you put this together in a way that would satisfy all the legal requirements? The Clinton people acknowledge that is not possible. They’re willing to accept a flawed election. I would call it a kitchen sink strategy. They’re prepared to use the kitchen sink if they have to, to win this, and they’ll do it however they think they can do it to their great advantage. This isn’t gonna work in large measure because it’s not administrated.
RUSH: I have never heard Daschle that agitated! I have never heard him speak that fast. I have never heard him that animated, because he’s just been called a coward by James Carville, and so that’s caused him to lash out at Carville and Clinton. So Carville shot back with this.
CARVILLE: Anybody watching the show can see what it is. I came on this show, offered to put up half the money. Obama people didn’t want to do it. Their lobbyists were working in Lansing with everything they could, working in Florida with everything they could to prohibit Floridians and Michigan from having an opinion in this. It’s very clear we cannot go into the general election if our nominee doesn’t want to face Democratic voters, and that’s what’s happening here. I’m all for it. We’re willing to put up the money. Governor Rendell —
DASCHLE: That’s a complete — complete mischaracterization.
BLITZER: A lot of people look at this, Senator Daschle, and they say, ‘You know, this is not a complicated ballot.’
CARVILLE: Yeah.
BLITZER: ‘You have Hillary Clinton, you have Barack Obama, you have a box. You check which one you like and you put the ballot in the box and you count the ballots.’
DASCHLE: If you tell everybody, Wolf, that they can vote — if you tell Armed Forces personnel and people who aren’t in Michigan that they can vote; if you tell people who voted the last time after they were told it was a meaningless vote, that they can vote — then I think we can talk about it. But they are all off the table. They’re saying, ‘We want to vote, but we just want to select the people that we can have a vote for,’ and that isn’t going to work.
CARVILLE: Again you can hear the fear.
DACHLE: There’s no fear!
CARVILLE: You can hear the fear.
DASCHLE: It’s fairness.
RUSH: Operation Chaos! This is James Carville and Tom Daschle you’ve been listening to, duking it out; one of them calling the other a coward, and then say (doing Carville impression), ‘You can hear the fear! You can hear the fear!’
(doing Daschle impression) ‘It’s not fear, Tom. It’s fairness.’
Operation Chaos. Absolutely! It’s desperation time on both sides! You know, Hillary has taken the weekend off. Hillary is up in Chappaqua. The political term for it is, she’s gone dark. She’s gone down. Her campaign’s down. She’s not participating in anything this weekend. Obama is out there doing anything he can to escape the race stuff that happens this week. That’s why he got his endorsement here from Bill Richardson. But his numbers are nose-diving. His numbers are taking a plunge, and he’s losing white support. But the point is, he can afford right now to lose because Hillary can’t win no matter what happens here. All that can happen is, the last shot that Hillary has at this is if Obama loses so much momentum from here on out that she gets enough votes to claim the popular vote winner in all of these primaries, and then say, ‘Look at the big states I won,’ and then go to the super voters, the superdelegates and say, ‘Look, he’s lost his momentum. He blew it up on the race business. We can’t have our nominee with this reverend on television every day during the general campaign. This guy is a ticket to the Democrat Party’s defeat.’ That’s her hope, and I’m sure that’s what she’s working on up there in Chappaqua. Meanwhile, Obama is trying to stanch the bleeding by trying to get everybody off the subject of race, and if he wants to do that — and this is going to be very, very difficult — he better not say another word about it for the foreseeable future. He said everything he’s going to say. But here’s the problem with that.
(doing reporter impression) ‘Senator Obama, what about what you said on Philadelphia radio about your grandmother?’
(doing Obama impression) ‘I’ve answered that. I’m not answering those questions anymore,’ and walk off.
Most people don’t get away with that in a presidential campaign. So regardless, folks, (laughter) Operation Chaos is exceeding all objectives, and it just keeps getting better.