Seven seconds

Timothy McNulty | April 29, 2009

Here's how it goes on Air Force One with spokesman Robert Gibbs. Questions about Specter that get down to how many minutes -- or even seconds -- it took for the president to decide to support him in next year's Pa primary:

Q    Robert, it's fairly unusual for a sitting President to basically endorse a candidate in a party primary.  Can we expect President Obama to be doing more of the same in the next election cycle?

 MR. GIBBS:  I don't think it's at all irregular for a President to endorse an incumbent member of his own party even if it's a new member.  I think you can go back and find a lot of examples of that.

The President is, as I said and he said yesterday, happy to have Senator Specter as a member of the Democratic Party, thrilled to have him, support him fully.  He's made a decision of how to best represent the people he represents in Pennsylvania and we're happy that he did so.

Q    Robert, to follow up on Ed's question, it was -- I think, seven minutes lapsed before the President was on the phone with Senator Specter saying he would support him in the primary  --

MR. GIBBS:  Seven minutes after he called him, yes.

Q    Well, could you on that point say when did he have an inkling before that -- he thought it through?  How did he arrive at the decision to offer that support, and did he consider supporting maybe a candidate who had been backed by the unions?

MR. GIBBS:  No, he supported a -- he supported the, albeit new, member -- incumbent member of his party.  There wasn't any meeting about it.  The President offered his support to Senator Specter and it's a commitment he'll keep.

 Q    Did he decide in that seven-minute span?  I think he said no.

MR. GIBBS:  My sense is it probably took him less than about seven seconds, so he might have had some extra time to think about other stuff.