Obama's N.H. leaders decry Shaheen comment
Barack Obama's campaign leaders in New Hampshire demanded this morning that Hillary Clinton's campaign refrain from "gratuitous" character attacks, citing a top Clinton official's assertion yesterday that Obama's youthful experimentation with drugs could be a general election liability.
"Such tactics have no place in New Hampshire, they have no place in this race and they do nothing to solve our problems," state Senator Martha Fuller Clark, a co-chairwoman of Obama's New Hampshire campaign, said at a press conference in Concord.
A Clinton spokeswoman said that Clinton personally apologized to Obama this morning at Reagan National Airport on their way to Iowa for the last debate before the Jan. 3 caucuses, telling the Illinois senator that personal attacks are not part of her campaign.
Bill Shaheen, a co-chairman of Clinton's New Hampshire campaign and the husband of former governor Jeanne Shaheen, told the Washington Post on Wednesday that Republicans would exploit Obama's experimentation with drugs in a general election, hurting his chances of getting elected.
"It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' " Shaheen said in the interview. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."
Clinton's New Hampshire campaign quickly disavowed the comments, and he apologized in a one-sentence statement through the campaign.
Obama wrote about his use of marijuana and cocaine as a youth in his memoir, "Dreams From My Father," and he has used his experience as a cautionary tale in discussions with young people on the campaign trail this year.
Ned Helms, another co-chairman of Obama's New Hampshire campaign, characterized the attack as a response from the Clinton campaign after seeing its large lead in New Hampshire polls disappear over the past several months. Two polls released on Wednesday showed the race statistically tied.
"I can understand the Clinton campaign is worried about losing what they viewed as a once-insurmountable lead, and we absolutely anticipate that this should be a tough campaign and we should challenge one another on our ideas," he said.
Helms noted a pattern of personal attacks by Clinton's campaign and its supporters, from the campaign's questioning Obama's portrayal of himself as only recently interested in running for president by citing an essay he wrote in kindergarten, to an e-mail circulated by Clinton supporters in Iowa calling Obama a secret Muslim. The volunteers were asked to leave the campaign.
"I suppose you could say the first time, 'Well, that's just what happens,' " Helms said. "But when you see a pattern of people making a statement, and then there's a follow-up statement that 'Oh, that wasn't authorized,' it doesn't take a genius to see there's a thread going on here.
"How many times are we going to see the isolated incident followed by the denial before we just simply say, 'Would you please stop? Let's get back to the campaign.' "
somebody please remind the Obama camp that the Clinton's do not have "tactics" these are simple mistakes that a simple apology will take care of at least thats what Bill says
It is a sneaky trick: pretending to make a mistake, while the dagger is stuck in. It kills just the same.
Actually, these dirty tricks merely confirm Hillary's image as being sleazy and willing to do anything to win - an image the Republicans would be able to exploit in the general election. Her minions are merely confirming her worst character flaw which makes her appear unelectable.
I don't think anyone is shocked by drug use anymore anyhow, so this is a non-issue. Next!
Does anyone believe Clinton could run the country better than she is running her campaign?
I think it was the part where he implied that maybe Obama had been a drug dealer that was so offensive. After all, when Bill Clinton said he smoked weed (but didn't inhale) nobody ever implied Bill was a drug dealer. And that whole "When was the last time you did it?" comment. Like maybe it was just a couple weeks ago and not 30 years ago.
gimme a break.
Clinton's camp is desperate, and boy are they getting ugly!
I love how negative Hillary's people feel like they have to go. It is really desparation time now. This was no accident, using her surrogates to do her dirty work. Did he eat paste when he was 5 also? We really need to know don't we? Face it, Obama is much more likeable and will have significant cross-over appeal, while "Slick Hilly" will only polarize the election.
You gotta know how to get down and dirty and be sleazy and unprincipaled in order to deal effectively with some of those middle eastern and other world leaders and Hillary repeatedly demonstrates she can do that with the best of them, she gets my vote. I just wish she would dress in leather and boots like Condi. Wow!
You gotta know how to get down and dirty and be sleazy and unprincipaled in order to deal effectively with some of those middle eastern and other world leaders and Hillary repeatedly demonstrates she can do that with the best of them, she gets my vote. I just wish she would dress in leather and boots like Condi. Wow!
Why apologize for saying the truth? I think that it's useful for the public to know if someone's a druggie; especially if he/she could potentially have a finger on the button.
Hey Bob. I am a Clinton supporter (still...barely...) but your comment is just idiotic. Because Obama smoked pot when he was a teenager, he is now a druggie? Do you make this comments to all people of color or just African-Americans? Just wondering.
Hey Bob. I am a Clinton supporter (still...barely...) but your comment is just idiotic. Because Obama smoked pot when he was a teenager, he is now a druggie? Do you make this comments to all people of color or just African-Americans? Just wondering.
Sorry, but the prototypical drug dealers in Honolulu in1979 were surfers -- you know, the white kids with the pretty girlfriends who really need to brush their hair and put something over their bikinis. The jocks played around with substances because they hadn't discovered steroids yet. If Roger Clemens had been our classmate back then, perhaps Barack Obama's memoir would have recalled 'roids as the catalyst for his choosing the straight and narrow. No doubt the surfers and the jocks had their culture interchanges back then.
Oh yeah, Barry was also on Ka Wai Ola, the elite literary magazine. So the future Princeton poets, who were not the pot heads on campus, apparently took him away from all that. Nobody ever offered me a joint until I got to Harvard in Fall of '79, so if Shaheen wants to paint a different picture, he can stick it in the fiction section.
By the way, last week when Shaheen was probably contemplating his dirty-failed-and-backfired smear, it was December 7th. I don't know what the Clinton camp was thinking abut, but anyone from Honolulu, I can tell you, was contemplating the Pearl Harbor attack. At least for a short quiet moment. We all do that, even if you were just a tourist who hopped on a Navy skiff to the Arizona memorial for an hour. It's the sort of thing that makes you mad when people claim you aren't patriotic for this or that hand gesture during ball games. Walk around the World War II monuments in the city where Obama and I grew up, and tell me how you feel about national security, and how important it is to read unbiased intelligence estimates and get the facts straight.
Raising questions of electability are fair when parsing through the candidates personal and political lives. It was certainly fair when Clinton's electability was called into question. Shaheen's comments (and worries) about an Obama nomination are valid. Here is what he said about Obama's admitted drug abuse in his late teens/20's - "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'...There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome." Sorry folks, but Obama's past drug use will be a huge concern for many Americans in the general election.
Bill...Shaheen's comment was not just a campaign trail error. Shaheen is the husband of a former governor and one of the top political insiders in the country. Folks on this level of politics do not blink an eye without thinking in advance of the consequenses of their actions or words and carefully every word they say to the media. Shaheen wasn't making off the record remarks that just happened to be overheard by a reporter, he was in an interview with the Washington Post and knew everything he said would be quoted. Could the camapign be using Shaheen as a sacrificial lamb in order to put another negative image about Obama in the minds of the voters?
It is a non issue, just blownout of porportion, it was just a statement, not a negative comment, maybe taken out of context, now can we move on with the issues at hand please....
This reminds me of the Bush and McCain campaigns, when somehow it was leaked that John McCain fathered a Viet Namese child--this is what I call dirty politics. This is exactly why I am voting for Barack Obama, he does not engage in this type of behavior. We needs a statesmen, a leader, someone with integrity, someone we can respect, who does not alter his ethics when the going gets touch.
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