Interview with Obama: Still Confident

TIME's Jay Newton-Small interviewed Barack Obama on his campaign plane on Wednesday and spoke about Hillary Clinton, double-standards, talking tough and going negative.

TIME: You said you'd like a better examination of Hillary Clinton's foreign policy experience. What exactly will you criticize in her foreign policy experience? OBAMA: Here's what's happened in this race. She has been able to assert throughout this campaign that she has 35 years of experience, that makes her more qualified. She hasn't won the debate on policy in this race. What she did, especially over the last two weeks, is essentially question my capacity. And so, if somehow she can discount my 20 years of experience working as a civil rights attorney or as a community organizer or as a state senator or as a United States Senator, and suggest that that career can be summed up in one speech, then I'm going to be interested in finding out what exactly she thinks makes her particularly well-prepared, for example, on foreign policy. When her advisors were on the phone after they had released this 3 a.m. phone call advertisement, somebody asked, well when has she dealt with a crisis? There was a thundering silence. And, in fact, when they finally scrambled to find out, to find some answer, what they came up with was, ironically enough, a speech. Her speech in China about women, which she constantly touts as an example of her foreign policy experience. So, let's ask a very simple question. Has she negotiated any treaties? When she traveled these 80 countries, was she involved in policymaking? If so, what? And my suspicion is that you're not going to get a bunch of particularly impressive answers.

Are you saying you're more qualified than she is? What I'm saying is that she has been able to assert experience that isn't backed up by a whole host of facts other than that she's been there.

You've also mentioned ethics, and there have obviously been a lot of questions over the years that the Clinton legacy is long and detailed. It is. And that hasn't been surfaced during this election. It has been our choice not to bring it up because my attitude has been that this should be a campaign about our policy positions and where we want to take the country but if she starts asserting that somehow I'm not ready and that one of the reasons that the Democrats or superdelegates should not vote for me is because we don't know enough about him, or there may be things in his past or his character that make him vulnerable to Republican attack, then I think it's certainly fair to compare our track records on issues like ethics to see whether or not I am more vulnerable to these kinds of attacks.

So she is doing that and you are going to compare, you're going to bring up her record now and say... I think it's fair if she thinks that [her record] is one of the reasons that she should be a nominee, then I think it shouldn't have to be [my campaign to bring up the issue]. Hopefully the press will do it's job and say let's take a look. Obama has this one issue related to Tony Rezko which everybody's been focused on, although there have been no allegations of any wrongdoing whatsoever. And this is something she keeps on pumping everyday to raise questions about my [record]. Well, I'll take that one episode in my long career and we can tally that up next to some of questions that she apparently thinks are relevant.

Over the last three days, Hillary Clinton has obviously thrown a lot at you. The kitchen sink, as you say, NAFTA, [controversial real estate developer Antoin] Rezko, 3 a.m. call. What hurt the most? You know, the truth is, in terms of what happened, in the last week, we were down 20 in all these states, and so we were working on closing the gap, but it's not clear to me that even if things were perfect that we could've entirely closed that gap. Partly because she's a very vigorous campaigner, and they had the resources to be able to get out there and hold that lead. And part of it was, there's a natural cycle on the coverage of these campaigns. I actually think that what probably had the most impact this past week was the press buying into this notion that they have been too tough on her or too soft on me. I actually think that had the biggest impact. She complained to the referees and the referees gave her some calls.

That sort of gets to my next point. You said it's the natural cycle of these things, do you think you've lost the momentum at this point? Are you still the frontrunner? I never thought I was the frontrunner. We're running against the most dominant and entrenched, Democratic, established candidate in recent history. It's hard to beat.

Your advisors pressed you pretty hard last fall to go negative on Hillary Clinton and it was a move that you resisted. Do you still think that you can win this without going negative? Sure. I mean, look, understand what I'm saying. We have drawn contrasts with Senator Clinton on policy. And I mean we have some tough hands on NAFTA for example. So I've never said we can't draw contrasts. What I have said, and I will continue to say is that this should be a campaign about different policies, different visions for the future. Where we want to take the country. This is what this campaign should be about. Over the last several weeks, what Senator Clinton has tried to make this campaign about is about me and planting doubts in the minds of voters on my veracity, on my ethics, saying that I'm not who people think I am. On how I would respond in a crisis. When this photograph of me with a Somali outfit came out, they didn't deny that it came out of their camp. She was questioned by Steve Kroft on 60 minutes about these vicious, scurrilous emails that have been going around and following us throughout the campaign. You know, when she questioned my faith, she said, well, I have no reason to doubt him. So, cumulatively, what has happened over the past several weeks, she has very directly questioned me. Not my policies, not my positions. I think what we are going to have to do is that if that is the basis on what she thinks she should win the nomination, then the Democratic party, voters, superdelegates are able to weigh these various attributes. And I think people will come away thinking, you know what, Barack is who he says he is and has been consistent on his positions. But I think we're going to do it in a way that is appropriate to the way we've run our campaign throughout this year.

So to further clarify that point, as she questions you, are you going to question her? My hope is that is if she is choosing to make this, not just about me, but about my character, that the press will do its job and ask, ok...

No, are you going to question her character? What I'm going to do is I'm going to make clear, that, if this isn't an issue about ethics, for example, and real estate and the character of our supporters then we will raise those same questions in respect to her that she is raising about me.

Will you rule out, right now, a ticket with Hillary Clinton, no matter who's on it which way... I'm not going to speculate on that.

You called her desperate the other day. Why? Well, for the reasons we just outlined. I think they were very clear about 'we will throw a bunch of stuff at Barack and see what sticks.'

Let's talk about Tony Rezko for a minute. You talked about how boneheaded it was. What was the nature of your discussions with Rezko prior to purchasing your Kenwood home. Well, as I said before, he was a real estate developer in the area. This was the biggest purchase Michelle and I had ever made. It was a very expensive house relative to our previous condominium. And so I asked him to take a look at the house and to give me his opinion in terms of whether he thought it was worth it. so I was essentially seeking a professional opinion from him in terms of whether or not it was a good buy.

Did you generally or expressively state a need for help in buying both or either of the tracts? No. I didn't need help.

Did you see [your] purchase of the strip of the Rezko plot, which was right next door to you, the strip of the plot that you purchased, as a way to reimburse him for his cash outlay of the down payment? No.

Just briefly now on NAFTA. The question of NAFTA... [Austan] Goolsbee [Obama's economic advisor]...

It's been a tough couple days. Your campaign did not acknowledge that the economic advisor had originally met with the Canadian consulate. Was that wholly truthful? It was truthful based on what we knew at the time. Frankly, none of us were aware that Austan had gone to the Canadian consulate but what was entirely true was our characterization that no discussions -- which [it] somehow was... a wink and a nod to the Canadian government -- took place. It turns out yes, Goolsbee was invited over and someone naively didn't understand that what he thought were casual conversations might end up in the memo to the Prime Minister of Canada. But, what he said turns out to be entirely consistent [with] what I've been saying on the campaign trail, which is I wasn't interested in repealing NAFTA but I was interested in strengthening the labor and environmental provisions.

There are a lot of Democrats who say that they, before this gets any nastier, they'd like to see the senior lions of the party come in. People like Al Gore. Is that something that you would accept or welcome at all? I am happy, I mean, I've had conversations with many of those people. I'd be happy to talk to them. My sense is that is that the Clintons, that they have decided that they want to continue. Senator Clinton was very firm on it and I don't begrudge her that at all. And I'm happy to coninue on, participating and letting the voters decide. I've said throughout this campaign, this is about who has won [more] primaries, caucuses, popular votes, delegates, I think that's a perfectly good way to resolve things.

Do you think it is selfish for her to continue? I think that's a good question for you to ask her, not me.

When was the last time you spoke with Vice-President Gore. A couple weeks ago.

Are you in touch with him? Is he an advisor? I don't want to put him in a spot where he's choosing sides. I'm sure he has cordial relations with everyone. But I talk to him often, mostly about policy issues rather than politics.

In going ahead, do you think the fight, a continued fight, is going to be bruising to the party? Especially if it's going to get as nasty as you say. I didn't say it was going to get nasty. I want to be very clear on this, Jay. What I've said is, if Senator Clinton thinks that the criteria for who should be the nominee has to do with personal qualities and personal attributes, then I think it will be important for Democrats to not just question mine, but question hers as well and examine hers as well. But I have no intention of getting nasty. I just want to make sure that we're not operating on a double standard or somehow, she gets a pass on experience, she gets a pass on ethics, she can sort of assert whatever record she wants. [The Clinton campaign may well be] holding a press conference in May going after me in a very personal way.

So you're not saying -- let me ask -- so you're not going to go after her in a personal way in return? I gave you, I think, a very good example. If, as she's done over the last week...

And as you said she is doing this... If she continues, as over the last week, to bring up real estate transactions and the character of our supporters, who have provided donations to our campaign, then we will make certain that she has to answer those same questions with respect to herself, her husband, and her campaign.

Can she still win? I feel confident that we will.