Top Clinton campaign officials Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson are holding another conference call with reporters now. Wolfson is pointing to a “pattern” of alleged plagiarism by Barack Obama, suggesting that reporters look at a blog entry by ABC’s Jake Tapper which suggests another example of Obama lifting material from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. In that blog entry, Tapper points to a statement from Obama quoted in USA Today in 2007: “I am not asking anyone to take a chance on me. I am asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations.” Tapper then quotes Patrick, speaking to the 2006 Massachusetts Democratic convention, saying, “I am not asking anybody to take a chance on me. I am asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations.”
Is this plagiarism? No. Obama and Patrick are longtime friends and freely share lines, as both have admitted.
Does this friendly borrowing mean that Obama’s words mean less, as the Clinton campaign is suggesting? I think so, but then again I always have thought that about his rhetoric. Now that the truth is out about it being nothing more than effective, proven campaign slogans (Obama tested his campaign strategy of words through a scientist named Deval Patrick in a lab named Massachusetts), the key is whether this argument will actually stem Obama’s swell and even sway votes from him to Hillary.
