Clinton's shenanigans
MONTICELLO, Iowa
BARACK OBAMA said yesterday that he accepted the apology of Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton after Bill Shaheen, Clinton's New Hampshire cochairman, suggested that Obama's teenage drug use would hurt him in the general election.
It was clear, though, that the apology did not cover all the recent shots at Obama that raise questions as to whether the Clinton campaign is getting desperate.
"The kindergarten stuff was not mentioned," Obama said in an interview after a morning town hall event here in eastern Iowa. The Clinton team was ridiculed in political circles for dredging up an Obama kindergarten I-want-to-be-president essay.
"She apologized for Billy Shaheen's comments, and said she had nothing to do with it," Obama said. "I accepted her apology. But the simple point I made was simply that it's important for those of us who are the candidates to send a clear signal down to all of our surrogates that we're going to do things differently."
Shaheen resigned this week after raising the issue in an interview with the
That leaves open as to how far the Clinton campaign, whose poll leads have evaporated in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, will go to stereotype Obama as not only naïve, but cast him in a sinister light in a nation where black drug use and criminality is exaggerated in the media and where Muslims face undue wariness. Earlier this week, the Clinton staff fired two Iowa volunteer coordinators for circulating a hoax e-mail saying Obama, a Christian, was a Muslim who might help destroy the United States.
"I don't think these strategies are very subtle," Obama said.
"I won't speak to the racial element of it because I think, you know, if I were a white candidate, obviously, somebody suggesting falsely they were a drug dealer, it's never good." But in sum, Obama, who has written about his teenage drug use in his memoirs, said, "There's been a series of these kinds of tactics that at some point we've just got to send a clear signal this is not what we're about."
The attacks appear to have no effect on his crowds. No one asked about drugs or kindergarten essays or his religion in well-attended community events in frigid, ice-strewn towns. They asked about healthcare, Iraq, and jobs.
Thursday night in Maquoketa, Brenda Carlson, a 57-year-old medical technologist, said she recently went to hear former President Bill Clinton speak on behalf of his wife, Hillary. "It was great. It was like going home," Carlson said. "But Barack is dynamic. I really like what he says about taking back America. I think I may change to him."
Also clearly enjoying the overreaching by Clinton was John Edwards. Seemingly recovered from puncturing his commoner image with his $400 haircut and huge house, he was in full roar Wednesday at a middle-school auditorium in Des Moines. His promise to fight the establishment earned ovations that drowned him out.
"I take it very personally when I see powerful, well-financed interests drug companies, oil companies, insurance companies, big banks, when I see them taking over this democracy and taking your rights away from you," Edwards said. In an interview after the speech, Edwards said he remains resolute that his message is working that "the system is broken" and Clinton "defends the system."
Obama was careful not to say who the Democratic nomination belongs to, two-and-a-half weeks before the Iowa caucuses. "She remains the favorite," Obama said of Clinton. "She was considered a shoo-in at least for the nomination as recently as a month ago. We've made some progress, but you know, she still has an enormous infrastructure and a former president who is extraordinarily popular campaigning on her behalf . . . We got a shot, but we've got to stay hungry."
Obama even said that there was a positive side to the attacks by Clinton surrogates. "All these issues and these tactics are ones that very well could come up in a general election. So I don't mind if this stuff comes up now.
"Let's get it on now. Let's be clear about whether these tactics work or not . . . I do not think these kinds of tactics work. I'm from Chicago. I'm used to all kinds of shenanigans."
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
