WASHINGTON, 15 December 2007 — This is a classic example of an attack campaign that ricocheted. After Hillary Clinton adviser sullied Barack Obama this week with accusations of drug dealing, early polls yesterday show that Obama has nudged past Clinton. The negative attacks by her campaign on her opponents has not driven up her numbers in the polls and in speeches made yesterday, she made it clear she was trying to move on from the drug implication charges of her campaign staffer.
In a dramatic encounter at Reagan Airport in Washington on Thursday, as the two candidates prepared to fly to Iowa for a Democratic debate, Senator Clinton disowned the controversial comment, and apologized to Sen. Obama.
Clinton’s personal apology reflected her advisers’ views that the perception she was smearing the Illinois senator could doom her campaign. David Axelrod, a top aide to Obama, said Obama accepted Clinton’s apology, but suggested he didn’t let her off the hook easily. “She said she didn’t know that this was happening and she was sorry about it, and he accepts that,” Axelrod said.
But he also said Obama told Clinton he thinks it’s “important for campaigns to send the signal from the very top that this isn’t tolerated.”
“You cannot say that negative campaigning attacks are the ‘fun part’ of the campaign and then expect people down the line to take a signal that this isn’t okay,” Axelrod said, noting the “essence” of their exchange was that “everybody has responsibilities.”
Axelrod also insisted that Obama never sold or shared drugs.
Clinton’s personal intervention underlined the problems her campaign faces following a series of mistakes that have reinforced the view of many voters that she will do anything to tear a rival down.
In what is becoming a pattern for the Clinton campaign — two aides were forced to resign after forwarding emails stating Senator Obama was a radical Muslim; the national headquarters immediately disowned the remarks.
Bill Shaheen, a Clinton campaign co-chairman, and husband of former governor Jeanne Shaheen, was also ordered on Thursday to issue an apology before he, too, resigned.
“I made a mistake and in light of what happened, I have made the personal decision that I will step down,” Shaheen said in a statement. He said his comments concerning Senator Obama had not been authorized by the Clinton campaign.
“The fact that he resigned so quickly may stem the bleeding a bit, but they’ve still got some work to do to offset the negative perception,” said Andrew Smith, an associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire.”
Shaheen, an attorney and veteran organizer, had earlier said that much of Senator Obama’s background was murky and could be a problem in next November’s election if he was the Democratic nominee. Shaheen told The Washington Post on Wednesday that he thought Republicans would exploit that issue during the general election.
He argued that Republicans would work to discover new aspects of his sometimes wayward youth, when by his own admission he experimented with drugs and alcohol.
In his best-selling memoir “Dreams from My Father,” Obama admitted to using marijuana and cocaine when he was a teenager.
In an interesting twist, observers say those campaigning for Obama have been using the Clinton aide’s comments as part of a fund-raising appeal, keeping the issue alive because Obama advisers say they believe it will backfire against the Clinton campaign.
But the story didn’t end there: On Thursday afternoon, Clinton’s top adviser, Mark Penn, appeared on MSNBC with Obama’s top adviser, David Axelrod. They argued with one another, and it was there that Penn dropped the word “cocaine,” saying that the Clinton campaign had not raised the issue of “cocaine use.”
