DUKAKIS SPEAKS! Predicts Obama will win the nom, but needs to step it up

[LTR]

(cross-posted from LBN)

Very enlightening article. Dukakis doesn't hold much back.

http://www.observer.com/2008/dukakis-its-probably-obama-08-campaign-needs-improve

Mr. Dukakis has maintained an adamantly neutral public stance throughout the campaign, hoping instead to sell both candidates and their campaigns on the need for assembling a massive grassroots organizing effort—a captain and six block leaders in all 200,000 precincts in the country—for the fall. But he also said that Barack Obama will probably be the nominee and the race decided by early June, and possibly much sooner, with primaries in Indiana and North Carolina on tap next week.

“If Obama wins both of those states on the sixth of May, I don’t see how as a practical matter he doesn’t have it,” Mr. Dukakis... said in an interview this week.

...

He thinks, in short, that Sen. Obama doesn’t have any electability problem that Sen. Clinton doesn’t have in equal measure. “Look, she’s got stuff, he’s got stuff,” he said. “Her negatives are higher now than when she started.” Not concerned about Rev. Wright.


...

An ally of Howard Dean, the Democratic national chairman who has taken a hard line against Florida’s and Michigan’s claims to full convention representation based on their January contests, Mr. Dukakis bristles at the notion that Sen. Clinton should get any credit—in delegates or in popular votes—for her nominal victories there.

“Florida and Michigan are off the table,” he said. “I mean, how many times do you move the goal posts? There were no contests in Florida and Michigan—none. My solution is to split the delegations and seat them 50-50 (half for Sen. Obama and half for Sen. Clinton). That’s all. The Clinton campaign wouldn’t be happy about that.”

...

He says that the Obama campaign needs to improve its ground game, and really get into the communities and rally supporters.

Also said that his wife Kitty is a hardcore Obama supporter.

[LTR]

1. Kick to show edits, excerpts

:kick:

[LTR]

3. .

:kick:

[redqueen]

2. “Her negatives are higher now than when she started.”

Thanks for the cross-post. :)