Oh-eight (D): Bill reined in?
Posted: Monday, January 28, 2008 9:10 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Democrats
CLINTON: So now what? The New York Times writes that the Clinton campaign “will try to shift the former president back into the sunnier, supportive-spouse role that he played before Mrs. Clinton’s loss in the Iowa caucuses, Clinton advisers said. But Democrats said it was not clear whether the effects of Mr. Clinton’s high profile could be brushed away by having him modulate his campaign style. They said Mr. Clinton had upset some of the central themes of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, including her appeal to women and her assertions that her time in the White House during the 1990s amounted to vital experience rather than a link to a presidency defined as much by scandal and partisan divisions as by its successes on fronts like the economy."
More: "Clinton advisers said that Mr. Clinton would continue to campaign nearly full time for his wife in the days leading up to the Feb. 5 primaries and caucuses in 22 states, yet they added that he would take a more positive tone. They said his role would be akin to his effort before the Iowa caucuses, when he highlighted Mrs. Clinton’s record and her policy ideas, and was used in part to build huge crowds on college campuses rather than attack Mr. Obama. (It was after her third-place finish in Iowa that Mr. Clinton turned much more aggressive.) The campaign announced Sunday night that Mr. Clinton would speak on Tuesday at a college in New Jersey, which has a Feb. 5 primary."
Bloomberg's Al Hunt has a tough piece on the Clintons under the header: "Clinton Paying a Price for Duplicity on Obama."
Newsweek has a very long piece about Bill's role in the campaign. "Clinton has an uncanny ability to spot turning points and weak spots. ‘It's a preternatural talent,’ says one former adviser, who asked not to be named discussing the former president. ‘He can detect mood changes before they turn up in the polls.’ On Jan. 15, as Clinton traveled to an event in Nevada before the Jan. 19 caucuses, he was flipping through a stack of news clips and noticed some comments that Obama had made the day before to the conservative-leaning editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal. Clinton expressed astonishment that Obama was on the record appearing to recognize Republicans for being the ‘party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.’ Clinton looked up and scoffed: ‘What ideas is he talking about? Torture? That a new idea? Privatizing Social Security? What the hell is he thinking?’ The Clinton campaign is now trying to cast Obama as a closet Reaganite."
More: "Clinton undoubtedly knows that he is paying at least a short-term price for his role as his wife's attack dog. But his supreme confidence allows him to believe he can regain any lost ground (after all, he was impeached for lying to a grand jury about his affair with an intern and went on to become a global hero for his work on AIDS and poverty). ‘He's deliberately sacrificing his stature as senior statesman in order to help her win,’ says an adviser who declined to be identified discussing Clinton's motivations. ‘He thinks he can get it back later.’”
The Clinton camp's problems with the media is also touched on: "The advisers closest to Hillary—a circle of old friends and aides, almost entirely women, known as ‘Hillaryland’ —are particularly frustrated by perceived media bias against the Clintons. They especially chide MSNBC ‘Hardball’ host Chris Matthews (who publicly apologized last week for seeming ‘disrespectful’ to Hillary) and the Times's Dowd. In the collective view of Hillaryland, the press critics have a sexist double standard. The pundits squawk when Bill Clinton goes out to defend his wife, Hillary's friends say, but they make barely a peep when Michelle Obama plays the role of hard-hitting surrogate for her husband. Some of Hillary's old-time allies are irked at her campaign staff, particularly chief strategist Mark Penn and ad guru Mandy Grunwald, for not doing a better job of softening Hillary's sternness in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses. Lately some Hillarylanders, notably Maggie Williams, Hillary's former chief of staff as First Lady and later a Bill Clinton aide, have played a more prominent role in the campaign. And Hillary has shown a more human side, memorably getting misty-eyed before the New Hampshire primary."
Bill Clinton is on the cover of the New York Post: “Wild Bill.” The subhead: “Furor at latest diss of Obama.” The paper also calls him the “big mouth of the South.” Clinton said, "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here." The Post’s interpretation: “The message: that Obama might peel off a few Southern states with sizeable black populations, as Jackson did, but can't forge a successful nationwide candidacy.”
Clinton the candidate said she wants her husband out there. “‘He is going to continue to be with me and support me and speak out for me,' Clinton said the day after Senator Barack Obama beat her in South Carolina's Democratic primary by a margin of more than 2-to-1. ‘I'm really glad that he's there with me, and I think everybody just needs to take a deep breath,' she said.”
"Looking for some fresh momentum of her own, Mrs. Clinton has started calling attention to the largely ignored Democratic vote tomorrow in Florida, a state where a recent poll gave her a 48% to 28% edge. All the Democratic candidates have pledged not to campaign in Florida, which was stripped of all its delegates by the Democratic National Committee as punishment for moving its primary into January. Though the party forbade candidates from staging rallies there, it is allowing fund-raising visits; Mrs. Clinton has three scheduled today, in Sarasota and Miami. And she now plans to visit Florida after the polls close tomorrow night to ‘thank her supporters.’”
The Washington Post looks at the battle between Clinton and Obama for the support of voters in Clinton's home congressional district in New York.
OBAMA: The New York Times: "Both the Clintons and their allies had pressed Mr. Kennedy for weeks to remain neutral in the Democratic race, but Mr. Kennedy had become increasingly disenchanted with the tone of the Clinton campaign, aides said. He and former President Bill Clinton had a heated telephone exchange earlier this month over what Mr. Kennedy considered misleading statements by Mr. Clinton about Mr. Obama, as well as his injection of race into the campaign.
Mr. Kennedy called Mr. Clinton Sunday to tell him of his decision." Kennedy "intends to campaign aggressively for Mr. Obama, beginning with an appearance and rally with him in Washington on Monday. He will be introduced" by Caroline Kennedy who endorsed Obama in a New York Times op-ed yesterday. More: "Kennedy then heads west with Mr. Obama, followed by appearances in the Northeast. Strategists see him bolstering Mr. Obama’s credibility and helping him firm up support from unions and Hispanics, as well as the party base."
"Trying to dilute the impact of the twin endorsements by the brother and daughter of the late president, the Clinton campaign on Sunday issued a statement of support from Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a former lieutenant governor in Maryland and a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy."
Caroline and Ted Kennedy’s “joint appearance will suggest Obama's claim to the mantle of generations of Kennedys, including Caroline's father, the late President Kennedy,” the Boston Globe writes. More: “The coveted endorsement is a huge blow to Clinton, who is both a senatorial colleague and a friend of the Kennedy family. In a campaign where Clinton has trumpeted her experience over Obama's call for hope and change, the endorsement by one of the most experienced and respected Democrats in the Senate is a particularly dramatic coup for Obama.”
So how much of a risk is Obama taking by emphasizing is support for driver's licenses for illegal immigrants in order to woo California Latinos? The San Francisco Chronicle takes a look. “It's a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It's also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama's stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in California, where driver's licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis."
In an unusually aggressive move for the USA Today editorial page, the paper questions Obama's record. "Most of what voters do know about Obama involves style more than substance. ... But the presidency is obviously about more than inspiration. A week from tomorrow, voters in 22 more states have a major say in deciding whether Obama will be the Democratic nominee. USA TODAY doesn't endorse candidates, but this page often points out where we agree or disagree with them and raises questions we think voters should ask. In Obama's case, these include: As the candidate of ‘change,’ what changes does he want? Could he deliver them? Would he be the capable leader the nation needs to preside over wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a turbulent economy at home and a looming budgetary tsunami?”
An Obama source tells us popular African-American author Toni Morrison will officially endorse Obama, a nice counter balance on the literary front for Obama to Maya Angelou's support for Hillary Clinton.
The New York Times Krugman hits Obama -- yet again -- by comparing his candidacy to Clinton's in '92. "Whatever hopes people might have had that Mr. Clinton would usher in a new era of national unity were quickly dashed. Within just a few months the country was wracked by the bitter partisanship Mr. Obama has decried. This bitter partisanship wasn’t the result of anything the Clintons did. Instead, from Day 1 they faced an all-out assault from conservatives determined to use any means at hand to discredit a Democratic president. For those who are reaching for their smelling salts because Democratic candidates are saying slightly critical things about each other, it’s worth revisiting those years, simply to get a sense of what dirty politics really looks like."
