On an Obama campaign conference call moments ago, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe offered a novel push-back against Hillary's claims that she's better prepared for a general election.

Plouffe argued that because the Obama campaign hasn't run as brutal a campaign against Hillary as she has against him, she has not been thoroughly vetted and hence would also be vulnerable against the GOP, despite claiming the contrary.

"We have not run a scorched earth campaign," Plouffe claimed, adding that as a result, "the Republicans are going to have any number of issues to use against Senator Clinton."

The Clinton camp argues that the Obama campaign has repeatedly attacked Hillary's character as untrustworthy and unscrupulous, and has repeatedly questioned Hillary's electability without facing the same criticism for doing so.

Indeed, Plouffe did so on the very same call, saying: "The American people are not going to elect a president that they do not trust." It's hard, however, to see that as being quite in the same league with the hits on Wright, and now, Ayers.

Either way, one thing that's interesting about Plouffe's latest argument -- that their supposed lack of negativity would leave her vulnerable against the GOP -- is that it's kind of an inverse of the Clinton camp's argument that their harsh criticism of Obama is fair game in that it will air out Obama in advance of the general, should he be the nominee.

Late Update: Here's the audio from the conference call: