Clinton-Obama: The Morning After

newyorktimes
The Clinton-Obama tempest drew a lot of media coverage in the last 24 hours, whipping around the Internet and on television like a brushfire. And Howard Wolfson, a top adviser to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, continued to fan it with his “we’re-not-gonna-take-it” strategy against criticism of the Clintons, insisting again that Senator Barack Obama should denounce David Geffen’s remarks.

On MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Chris Matthews asked whether any shot against former President Bill Clinton — “the fact that he was impeached, his personal behavior” — would be met with a Clinton campaign charge of “dirty campaigning?” Yes, Mr. Wolfson replied, “bringing up personal behavior — I think that’s below the belt.”

Personal attacks, Mr. Wolfson said, are “unacceptable political discourse.”

Mr. Wolfson even suggested that the Obama campaign might have put Mr. Geffen up to making those remarks in an interview with The Times’s Maureen Dowd, another charge that Mr. Obama denied last night in Iowa. He said Mr. Geffen was entitled to his own opinions and wasn’t speaking for the Illinois Democrat’s campaign.

Pressed by Mr. Matthews as to why the Clinton campaign kept referring to Mr. Geffen as an Obama “finance chair” — which he is not — Mr. Wolfson basically shrugged and said you decide what to call someone who is the host of a million-dollar fund-raising event.

Every campaign has nicknames for their top donors; think of the Bush Rangers and Pioneers. But the Clintons, through two presidential races, two Senate races and now another presidential primary cycle, usually don’t refer to their big fundraisers and bundlers as official campaign finance chairs.

And the campaign seems to be taking on an added risk: Drawing repeated attention to Mr. Geffen’s comments gives Mrs. Clinton’s adversaries more opportunities to revisit the Lincoln bedroom stays by her husband’s top donors.

As for strategy, if this early tempest was a test-the-muscles of the Obama camp, we’re not going to call a winner on this round, (it’s not our place) even if the Clinton campaign is busily touting a Slate piece declaring Mrs. Clinton to have trumped Mr. Obama. And if this flap served to distract from the forum in Carson City, Nev., where Mrs. Clinton’s Iraq vote was questioned again, several of the other Democratic hopefuls signaled their intent to keep that issue alive.

“People know that the Clintons know how to fight back,” Mr. Wolfson told Mr. Matthews.

Yep. We’re in for a long campaign season. It’s only February 2007.