Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama's campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.

including remarks as recent as 2003.

People can change their mind when confronted with data that say a certain policy may not be working as well as one would like.  Perfectly legit, I've read quotes where she framed it in this way.  

as well, NAFTA was a partial response to the similarly premised European Union, which everyone conveniently (including H. Ross Perot) forgets, when discussing it. again, the basic idea behind NAFTA was sound, from both an economic and social perspective. it just was.

where it floundered (and the main reason why so many who should have supported it didn't, including myself) was in requiring that all parties to the agreement be mandated to have a "level playing field". this would have required that canada, but especially mexico, legislate similar labor, workplace safety, product safety and environmental laws as the businesses in the united states were working under.

that failure has (and rightfully so) been the source of much of the antagonism towards NAFTA; mexico especially has taken advantage of this, in the primary industries.

clearly, this puts businesses in both the US and Canada at a competative disadvantage; they have litte choice but to move those operations south of the border, or outsource them to asia. they'd be remiss in their fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders otherwise.

this weakness was the reason sen. clinton was less than enthusiastic about NAFTA, as so many in actual elected and policy positions were. however, as the pres's. spouse, she was expected to say only nice things about it in public, or refrain from comment altogether.

where it floundered (and the main reason why so many who should have supported it didn't, including myself) was in not requiring that all parties to the agreement be mandated to have a "level playing field". this would have required that

he is just a complete DC insider scumball.

I would NOT care a bit about him being a duplicitous liar out to line his pockets on the sweat of us peeeee-ons stupid enough to allow it, EXCEPT that

like Nagourney or Schrum or Penn ...

the guy acts like he has some more noble goal in life !

yeah, whatever.

there are a LOT of reasons this country is going to end up like brazil or mexico or nigeria ... with 90% of us fighting each other to drink outta the local puddle,

and 1 of the most significant reasons will be that,

instead of rewarding people who come up with the ideas to provide effective and efficient health care and education and security and google and the model T ...

we reward the Gergen-esque parasites, we reward the exxons and the boeings and the gms for rigging the market so there isn't competition for their crap products...

gergen should stay in his ivory towner next to Allston.

But lets be honest.  

Clinton has been all over the place on NAFTA.  There are numerous examples of her talking about how good NAFTA is, including in one of her books.  

Was she possibly opposed to in the beginning?  It is definitely possible.  But she has come out pretty strongly at different points in support of NAFTA.

In 1992 I knew what NAFTA and the other such trade agreements would do. And it damaged much of the Democratic Party's base. When blue-collar workers, or former blue-collar workers, don't have money, they lost political power. When they have to migrate to non-union jobs they lose the organizational structure of unions. The divide between the ultra-rich and the rest of America got that much bigger, and so did the power divide.

Canadian media reveals Obama's posture on NAFTA is solely "campaign  rhetoric."

Via CTA.ca News article, "Obama staffer gave warning of NAFTA rhetoric":" ... Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama's campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value. But Tuesday night in Ohio, where NAFTA is blamed for massive job losses, Obama said he would tell Canada and Mexico "that we will opt out unless we renegotiate the core labour and environmental standards."