The Los Angeles Times actually does a reasonably good job of reporting the way that the Clinton campaign has been skating along at the very edge of going fully negative. Their report actually covers the way Clinton has used surrogates to launch 'deniable' attacks while keeping up a steady drip of cheap shots, innuendo and rumor.
Recent polling shows that Obama would be competitive in the general election; a USA Today-Gallup poll showed that he fares a bit better than Clinton in head-to-head contests with three top Republicans.
But Clinton's message is that once the GOP finishes sullying him, he won't look so pristine. In contrast, she is, she said, "ready and able to run a campaign against whatever" — a word she emphasized — "the Republicans decide to throw our way."
In addressing voters, she does not specify what "whatever" might encompass, nor does she mention Obama by name. But some of her surrogates have.
During a recent newspaper interview, her New Hampshire campaign co-chairman invoked Obama's teenage drug use, which the senator from Illinois has publicly discussed. Such indiscretions, said Bill Shaheen, could make Obama vulnerable.
"It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' " Shaheen said.
Clinton's campaign repudiated the remarks, and Shaheen quickly resigned. But there have been other cases of Clinton aides and loyalists zeroing in on aspects of Obama's history that she won't publicly mention.
In a television appearance, her top strategist, Mark Penn, used the word "cocaine" in talking about the Shaheen episode. An advisor to another campaign jumped in and chided Penn for making a gratuitous reference.
Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), who endorsed Clinton on Sunday, later gave an interview where he mentioned Obama's middle name — "Hussein," a family name — and added that Obama's Kenyan father and paternal grandmother were Muslim (the candidate is Christian).
Kerrey has said that he was merely trying to compliment Obama, casting him as a worldly figure — but his words could also serve to agitate voters.
Better coverage than many media outlets even though it is still going easy on Clinton. They do point out Penn's cheap shot, but they fail to note that it came after Hillary "apologized" which indicates the real direction the campaign has received. But the polls are still not showing that Clinton has stopped her slide. Clinton still holds a comfortable lead in the national polls, but the Iowa and New Hampshire ones are still a problem. The Clinton campaign is indicating today that they see Edwards as a real threat in Iowa. Because of the way the Iowa Caucuses work, the second choice votes are very important. Clinton could, quite conceivably finish in third place there. That might be a real problem and may really damage her nationally.
INDEPENDENCE, Iowa — Advisers to Hillary Clinton have been pushing the notion that John Edwards poses a growing threat in the Iowa caucuses, suggesting their internal data show something of a mini-surge for the former senator from North Carolina. Barack Obama's advisers have countered that it makes for a convenient story line — and is evidence that the Clinton campaign is threatened by a two-way race with Obama.
On Wednesday, Clinton took Edwards on over his signature issue, indicating that she may view the Edwards improvements as quite real. "People talk about poverty in this campaign," Clinton said during a crowded event here, noting that her husband's administration was an era of great progress on the issue. "Well, we lifted more people out of poverty during the 1990s than at any time in our history.
In a way, Clinton's attacks on Edwards – and public "leaking" of the campaign's concerns are another attack on Obama. His campaign is correct about that. This sends the signal that Hillary doesn't regard Obama as all that big a threat. It is subtle, but it is vintage Clinton.
