This is a very brief diary, but I wanted to get this new Times article out here.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
After struggling for months to dent Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy, the campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now unleashing what one Clinton aide called a "kitchen sink" fusillade against Mr. Obama, pursuing five lines of attack since Saturday in hopes of stopping his political momentum.
The article goes on to explain why Clinton has gone so negative in recent days after her last appearance with Obama during the debate.
Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, said that the Clinton campaign had "engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party."
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Mrs. Clinton’s new campaign manager, Maggie Williams, recently appointed to bring a tougher hand to the operation, issued a withering reply, not taking responsibility for the photograph but attacking the Obama campaign for suggesting that the photograph amounted to fear-mongering imagery.
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Clinton advisers said on Monday that the attacks were partly an effort to knock Mr. Obama off balance before the debate on Tuesday.
They also said they were also sending a signal to supporters and donors that Mrs. Clinton was still resolutely fighting to win the presidential nomination, despite news reports in recent days about her dispirited campaign operation and her own somber outlook on the race.
To bolster her case at the George Washington speech, Mrs. Clinton stood on stage with a half-dozen retired military officials, including Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who introduced her. "I’m convinced that when the going gets tough, Hillary Clinton will never let America down," General Clark said.
I guess that leaves Clark out of the running for VP. I thought it was a good article, though.
UPDATE
Slinkerwenk in comments alerted us to this Washington Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Thanks, Slinkerwenk!
First came Harold Ickes, who gave a presentation about Hillary Rodham Clinton's prospects that severed all ties with reality. "We're on the way to locking this nomination down," he said of a candidate who appears, if anything, headed in the other direction.
But before the breakfast crowd had a chance to digest that, they were served another, stranger course by Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer. Asked about an accusation on the Drudge Report that Clinton staffers had circulated a photo of Barack Obama wearing Somali tribal dress, Singer let 'er rip.
"I find it interesting that in a room of such esteemed journalists that Mr. Drudge has become your respected assignment editor," he lectured. "I find it to be a reflection of one of the problems that's gone on with the overall coverage of this campaign." He went on to chide the journalists for their "woefully inadequate" coverage of Obama, "a point that has been certainly backed up by the 'Saturday Night Live' skit that opened the show this past Saturday evening, which I would refer you all to."
Yesterday, Ickes played the good cop. "We think we are on the verge of our next up cycle," he reported, even suggesting the apparent impossibility that Clinton "may be running even" with Obama when all the contests are over. "This race is very close," he judged. "This is tight as a tick."
The reporters were dubious. The Monitor's Dave Cook mused about the consequences of Clinton "battling after there's not much chance."
"For the love of God, we can't say there's not much chance here," Ickes maintained.
David Chalian of ABC News reminded Ickes that Obama's lead in delegates is now of the size Ickes had said would be "significant."
"As we all know in this city, I have a very short memory," Ickes answered.
And I'd like to make one more update, courtesy of Dr. Micro in the comments below. Harold Ickes declares VOTERS irrelevant. Not just Texas, but Voters in general. Speaking of Superdelegates, or, as he calls them, automatic delegate, he claims:
"They are closely in touch with the issues and ideas of the jurisdiction they represent and they are as much or more in touch than delegates won or recruited by presidential campaigns," Ickes said.
Obama currently leads Clinton by 136 in pledged delegates but trails by 95 in superdelegates, according to calculations given by both campaigns.
"Hillary will end up with more automatic delegates than Obama," Ickes said, and the number of elections won by Obama is "irrelevant to the obligations of automatic delegates."