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Hillary and NAFTA

By wt

The North American Free Trade Agreement was famously passed during the Bill Clinton presidency.

So is it possible that Hillary can say she opposed NAFTA? Because it looks like she did.

The question becomes relevant because one of her must-win states, Ohio, is suffering from a weakened job market because of the agreement.

So Obama created this mailer, claiming that Hillary said NAFTA was "a boon" to the economy.

Except that was false. Newsday said that. Obama is quoting Newsday.

We do not have a direct quote indicating her campaign told us she thought it was good for the economy at that time. Also, for that matter, Clinton's campaign did not contact us to question the item after it appeared in print.

Obama's use of the citation in this way does strike us as misleading. The quote marks make it look as if Hillary said "boon," not us. It's an example of the kind of slim reeds campaigns use to try to win an office.

Wow. Good news for Hillary. And yesterday she had New Mexico. If she can string a few days of good news cycles together she might have something.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on February 15, 2008 (boomark / email).