Hillary taxes: What's right for Lazio isn't right for us?
Apparently, the questions we raised in an item yesterday about why Hillary Clinton and Howard Wolfson were so concerned about Rick Lazio's tax returns in 2000 and so lackadaisical about her tax returns this year filtered into one of the campaign conference calls today.
Clinton, as we noted, was complaining in early July of 2000 that it was "frankly disturbing" that Lazio hadn't released his returns. (Story after jump) By August, Wolfson and some character in an Uncle Sam outfit were disrupting Lazio events over the issue. He eventually released his returns on Aug. 29 -- more than two months before election day.
Wolfson, today, claimed that the Clintons had released 20 years of tax returns during their White House years in 2000, while Lazio was some kind of cipher: "As somebody who led the effort to ensure that Mr. Lazio provided his tax returns, certainly at that point he had not provided 20 years of his tax returns to the people of New York."
Predictably, that's misleading.
It's true that Bill and Hillary Clinton had released a bunch of old tax returns during the 1990s -- most of them because three times they had to make new payments to the IRS to correct for misreporting on commodities trades and Whitewater in the 1980s. Lazio, however, was in precisely the same position that Hillary is now: His opponent had released returns (just like Obama has), and as a Congressman his financial disclosure forms were available (the excuse Hillary has been using this year to not release her returns). That wasn't good enough for Clinton and Wolfson in 2000, but this year they've been playing the very stall game that they deplored 8 years ago.
Wolfson did answer one of our questions -- apparently assuring reporters that Hillary's release of returns "on or about" April 15 would definitely be before the April 22 Pennsylvania primary -- but dodged another about why he couldn't copy off, say, a 2001 return by March 15. Politico reports: "He didn't explain why they wouldn't be out sooner."
So, if we have this straight:
In July, 2000, more than 4 months before election day, Hillary Clinton is "frankly disturbed" that New York voters haven't had a chance to review Rick Lazio's returns. In August, three months before election day, Howard Wolfson is having conniptions about the same thing.
In 2008, the same Clinton and Wolfson blow off Democratic primary and caucus voters in 30 or so states, refusing to let them see her post-2000 taxes on the theory that the same disclosure forms that were inadequate for Lazio in 2000 are adequate for her.
Now, pressed at a debate and by Obama and by reporters, the same Wolfson and Clinton that thought 4 months were inadequate for Lazio take the position that Democratic voters in Mississippi and Wyoming still don't need to see her returns at all, and that 7 days will be adequate for Pennsylvania voters to digest the last 8 years of her returns as a public official.
And he thinks he doesn't need to explain why they won't be released earlier? Let's put that in the Clinton campaign unanswered questions column.
Hillary Clinton says she's still "a baby campaigner"
BYLINE: By MARC HUMBERT, AP Political Writer
SECTION: State and Regional; Political News
LENGTH: 711 words
DATELINE: ITHACA, N.Y.
Celebrating her one year anniversary as a political candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that she still can't compete with her husband's campaign skills.
She also launched yet another harsh attack on her Republican rival for the U.S. Senate, Rep. Rick Lazio, accusing him of engaging in "typical political double talk, double speak" and saying she found it "frankly disturbing" that he has still not released his income tax returns.
When it came to a comparison between her and President Clinton on the stump, the first lady said it was no contest.
"I'm a baby campaigner. I'm still in the toddler stage," she told reporters traveling with her on a five-day trip across upstate New York.
The first lady said her husband is the best campaigner she has ever seen.
"There's nobody that I know with those sets of skills and capacity to relate to people in every different kind of setting," she said.
Reflecting on her one-year anniversary on the campaign trail, Clinton said, "I had to learn to be a candidate. Those of you who were with me early on, I hope have seen a difference."
Hillary Clinton kicked off her Senate campaign exactly one year ago Friday with a visit to the upstate farm of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democrat she hopes to replace in the Senate. Moynihan is retiring at the end of the year.
Clinton took a page out of the Lazio campaign playbook Friday when she climbed aboard a bus in Ithaca carrying the press corps following her campaign. On Wednesday, Lazio held a more than 20-minute news conference aboard a bus carrying reporters covering his campaign.
Asked why she was now taking to the reporters' bus, Clinton said "maybe I hadn't been invited before." Actually, her own aides arranged the appearance.
Describing her year on the campaign trail, Clinton said "mostly it's been a great experience for me."
Clinton was greeted by hundreds of supporters as she walked the streets of Ithaca, and by a few who didn't support her candidacy. Working a rope line to shake supporters' hands, the first lady came across one man holding a sign that said: "New Yorkers for Rick Lazio. Carpetbaggers go home." The first lady spoke briefly to the man.
"I thanked him for coming out to see me," she said. "I'm glad to see him. It shows he's interested in the political process."
Asked what the man said to her, Clinton said "he just muttered. I've noticed that people who hold signs like that mutter a lot."
The man holding the sign refused to give his name but verified that the first lady thanked him for showing up.
Some of the signs were even less welcoming. One protester held aloft a sign reading: "I wonder who he's raping now?" Underneath was the name Juanita Broaddrick, an Arkansas woman who accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her at a Little Rock hotel in 1978. He was the state's attorney general at the time. The president has denied the allegations.
"It's just part of the background music of my life," the first lady said when asked about such signs.
Speaking to reporters after a speech to more than 250 people at a park in Elmira, Clinton continued her two-day old assault on Lazio for sending out fund-raising letters that told potential donors that "Hillary Clinton and her husband have embarrassed our country and disgraced their powerful posts."
Lazio has said he didn't write the letter or really read it even though it went out over his signature and his campaign has said they sent it out.
"I have been following this dog-ate-my-homework kind of response," Clinton said. "He didn't write the letter. He didn't read the letter."
"He's got to take responsibility for his record and for his campaign," she added.
Appearing on Albany's WROW-AM radio Friday, Lazio said, "I stand behind that letter. I accept responsibility for everything that comes out of this campaign."
Lazio has been under pressure to release his tax returns ever since it came out that he had made a hefty profit trading in stock options of a company that was owned by some of his major campaign contributors. Campaign aides to the Long Island congressman have said the income tax returns will be made public sometime this summer. The Clintons annually make public their tax returns.
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