text: 5 years ago 
   
   Washington (CNN) – "Reprehensible." "Irresponsible." "Hard to stomach." 
   
   White House senior adviser David Plouffe did not mince words Sunday when talking about the reaction by Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich to President Barack Obama's comments on the Trayvon Martin shooting. 
   
   
   
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   "Those two comments are really irresponsible. I would consider them reprehensible," Plouffe said on CNN's "State of the Union." "I think those comments were really hard to stomach, really, and I guess trying to appeal to people's worst instincts." 
   
   While the GOP presidential candidates said the incident was a tragedy, Santorum and Gingrich were particularly critical of the president's response to the shooting in which Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old, was shot and killed by a George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer. Zimmerman claimed he shot Martin in self-defense. 
   
   A somber Obama on Friday commiserated with the Martin family and urged authorities to fully investigate the shooting. 
   
   "If I had a son he would look like Trayvon," Obama said. "I think (his parents) are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves and we will get to the bottom of exactly what happened." 
   
   Santorum said the president politicized the events, while Gingrich characterized Obama's comments as "nonsense." 
   
   "What the president of the United States should do is try to bring people together, not use these types of horrible and tragic individual cases to try to drive a wedge in America," Santorum said Friday on "The Hugh Hewitt Show," a radio program. 
   
   "Is the president suggesting if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it wouldn't look like him? That's just nonsense," Gingrich said Friday on conservative host Sean Hannity's radio show, "The Hannity Show." "I mean dividing this country up, it is a tragedy this young man was shot." 
   
   But Plouffe, who served as Obama's 2008 campaign manager, said the Republican reaction is evidence of a circus-like primary. 
   
   "I don't think there's very many people in America that would share that reaction. You know, this Republican primary at some points has been more of a circus show and a clown show," Plouffe told CNN Chief Political Correspondent Candy Crowley. 
   
   Although he indicated the Obama campaign expects Romney to be the Republican nominee, Plouffe also predicted an aggressive election come fall. 
   
   "Romney has a big delegate lead so we've always felt you know because Romney's won a couple of big states lately, the fundamentals kind of support him," Plouffe said. "But it's going to be a close competitive race no matter who come out the other side." 
   
   Also see: 
   
   Santorum's Louisiana win does little to change the game of delegate math 
   
   ‘Math isn’t adding up,’ Gingrich delegate says 
   
   Santorum video: 'Obamaville' is a house of horrors 
   
   Watch State of the Union with Candy Crowley Sundays at 9am ET. For the latest from State of the Union click here. ||||| White House senior adviser David Plouffe said on Sunday that the administration is "confident" that the U.S. Supreme Court will find the health care law constitutional. 
   
   "We are confident it will be upheld," Plouffe said on ABC's "This Week," a day before oral arguments open on the case. 
   
   He said the mandate requiring every American to obtain health insurance is a concept developed by conservative thinkers and once supported by Republicans Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole and Mitt Romney, who Plouffe termed the "godfather" of the mandate. 
   
   Asked why the law isn't more popular, Plouffe said that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent attacking it and that the major benefits won't kick in until 2014. 
   
   "We just have to tell the story of this," he said. "One thing I am confident of, by the end of this decade, we are going to be very glad the Republicans termed this Obamacare because when the reality of health care is in place it will be nothing like the kind of fear mongering that was done." 
   
   Read more about: Supreme Court, David Plouffe, Health Law ||||| White House senior adviser David Plouffe declined on Sunday to say whether President Barack Obama would support or fight a gay marriage plank in the Democratic Party's platform. 
   
   "We don’t even have a platform committee," Plouffe said on ABC's "This Week." "We are going to work through the platform process." 
   
   Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and 22 senators have endorsed the national party taking a stance on marriage legalization. 
   
   Obama, however, remains opposed to gay marriage. 
   
   Read more about: Barack Obama, David Plouffe, Gay Marriage ||||| White House senior adviser David Plouffe on Sunday branded the House Republican spending plan as the "Romney-Ryan budget," a tactical move to link the budget crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) with the Republican presidential front runner Mitt Romney. 
   
   "If Mitt Romney is the nominee, then this really is going to be the Romney-Ryan plan," Plouffe said on ABC's "This Week." "He said he's going to rubber-stamp it. ... So the American people have to understand, if Mitt Romney's elected president, he'll rubber-stamp that budget. And here's what that budget is. It fails the standard -- it fails the test of balance and fairness and shared responsibility. It showers huge additional tax cuts on the wealthy ... that are paid for by veterans and seniors and the middle class, so it's not a balanced approach." 
   
   "So the president's approach is the right approach. It's the balanced approach," Plouffe said. "Anybody out there that's offered a deficit reduction plan, any expert says it's got to have balance, which means it's got to cut spending, and we've already cut a lot of spending, almost $2 trillion. It's got to reform entitlements in the right way. And you've got to get revenue through tax reform." 
   
   Ryan defended his plan on "Fox News Sunday," saying Medicare would grow at the same rate as under the president's plan while balancing the budget more quickly. 
   
   Read more about: Mitt Romney, David Plouffe, Paul Ryan
target: – David Plouffe is making the talk-show rounds this morning, and CNN reports that he's wasting zero time in bashing Newt Gingrich for accusing President Obama of politicizing the Trayvon Martin killing, and dismissing the GOP nomination race at large as a "clown show." Gingrich "is clearly in the last throes of his political career," said Plouffe, and instead of exiting "with some shred of dignity," has "clearly chosen" to "say these irresponsible, reckless things." "I think the president spoke movingly about this tragedy, as a father," Plouffe said. "So I think those comments were really hard to stomach, really, and I guess trying to appeal to people’s worst instincts." Elsewhere on the Plouffe dog-and-pony show, as per Politico: On Paul Ryan's budget: "If Mitt Romney is the nominee, then this really is going to be the Romney-Ryan plan. He said he's going to rubber-stamp it." On being "confident" health care reform will be upheld by the Supreme Court: "By the end of this decade, we are going to be very glad the Republicans termed this ObamaCare, because when the reality of health care is in place it will be nothing like the kind of fear mongering that was done." On the White House's gay marriage stance: "We don’t even have a platform committee. We are going to work through the platform process."